


Turn Into Earth

by theredwagon



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Angst, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-03-13 13:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13571928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredwagon/pseuds/theredwagon
Summary: Lonely Winds Part 3The Team is off to France chasing a lead on Rochefort's whereabouts, leaving a frustrated d'Artagnan behind to recover, but nothing goes according to plan, when does it ever for our Musketeers?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A few very important things before you read;
> 
> If it's _not_ in the warnings, it's _not_ in the story;)
> 
> My characters are based on canon and I try very hard to use actual moments and dialogue for inspiration. The show itself really is pretty dramatic and angsty, and some of the tropes cheesy and far-fetched, so I exonerate myself for doing the same and hope that you will too.
> 
> The title of this story is the title of a song by the amazing Yardbirds.

Turn Into Earth - Chapter 1

 

Someone is banging incessantly at the door.

D’Artagnan groans and checks the time on his phone; 10:34 pm. It’s not his mum or Ellie, they have their own keys so he considers not bothering to get up but the pounding continues, interspersed with the ringing of the doorbell. Frustrated, he flips on the light from the switch beside the bed and rolls carefully off the mattress. 

His injuries are barely healed and movement is difficult. The gash on his left arm is no longer bandaged and the sutures are gone but his whole arm from shoulder to wrist feels achy and sometimes even numb. The wound in his side had needed a graft so it’s still covered and tender, and it needs daily treatment so his mum has been ferrying him to and from the hospital every afternoon. It’s only been two weeks since the hostage incident at Marie’s school, and one since he’s been home, and he still fees weak and tired and by early evening, he’s ready for bed. Whoever’s at the door will definitely be getting an earful.

Rubbing at his eyes, d’Artagnan stumbles down the hallway of his flat, weaving his way to the door, shivering slightly as he’s only wearing an old t-shirt and a flannel pyjama bottom. Even with the heat turned up, February in London is bloody cold.

“Oi, enough, I’m coming,” he shouts, the shrill shriek of the doorbell making him cringe. He pops the cover from the spyhole and is shocked to see Athos, Aramis and he thinks Treville outside his door. How the hell they got past the security door in reception, d’Artagnan has no clue.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell, lads, didn’t you get the hint when I didn’t open up the first two hundred times you rang the bloody bell?” he grumbles as he pulls the door open and lets them in. “And you have a key!” he says to Athos accusingly. “If it’s that urgent, use it and then wake me…gently,” he says with a grimace as he stumbles to the sofa, one hand on the wound on his side. 

Aramis and Treville seem to literally collapse onto the sofa beside him, both looking exhausted and haggard, their clothes rumpled like they’d been wearing them for more than a day but Athos crosses the room to lean against the wall beside the kitchen bar, his gaze fixed on the lights of the London skyline outside the balcony doors. 

“Where’s Constance and Porthos?” he asks, genuinely confused, tucking his hair behind his ears. “And when did you lot get back? I haven’t heard from any of you in two days,” he adds, disgruntled. 

“Porthos is in an American Military Hospital in Paris,” Aramis answers woodenly, not meeting his gaze. “He’s got some shrapnel wounds and some superficial burns,” his brother explains quietly.

D’Artagnan gasps and feels like he might face plant, right off the sofa. “And you left him? Is Constance with him?”

“We stayed until Ellie arrived earlier today with her parents and Marie, he’ll be fine, the doctors are expecting him to make a complete recovery,” Aramis tells him, his voice somewhat unsteady when he finally meets d’Artagnan’s gaze. There’s something there that’s making d’Artagnan feel very uneasy. Treville has his hands clasped between his knees and he’s fixated on his shoes and Athos is rigid as a statue, still staring vacantly out the glass doors.

D’Artagnan takes a deep breath and tries to calm his beating heart; something is very, very wrong.

“Aramis, where is Constance?” he asks carefully, each word punctuated so that his brother doesn’t misunderstand what he is asking. “What the fuck happened in France?” he demands, becoming more and more agitated by the second. He tries to get up off the sofa but suddenly find his legs are like jelly and he stumbles. Aramis jumps to his feet and grabs him before he can hit the floor but he accidentally jars his injured arm, and d’Artagnan yelps and pulls away, stumbling back towards the dining table, steadying himself on one of the tall-backed chairs. 

Aramis reaches out a hand, his expression pained, eyes blood-shot, looking like he’s aged ten years in two weeks, but d’Artagnan shakes him off and he turns to Athos.

“Where’s Constance, Athos? If she’s been injured I have a right to know!” he spits angrily, the room spinning around him. 

Treville rises from the sofa when neither Athos nor Aramis reply and he comes to stand in front of d’Artagnan and for the first time he notices that the older man has been crying.

“I’m so sorry, lad…” he begins, but d’Artagnan doesn’t hear a word he says. His ears are ringing and the room is tilting and he starts to tremble, shaking his head and muttering _‘no…no…no…no’_ like a mantra and suddenly he wants to be away from these people who are supposed to be his family, with their half-truths and their platitudes and he makes a break for his bedroom, only to collapse after taking only two steps. 

Athos catches him before he crashes to the floor and the older man gently lets him slide to his knees, and he kneels down in front of him, his arms looped carefully around him as d’Artagnan continues to shake his head and mumble over and over again, _‘no…no…no..no’_. Athos snakes one hand in his hair and one around his back, holding him soothingly as he trembles, his body wracked with spasms of pain and horror and grief.

“I’m so fucking sorry, child, so God-damned fucking sorry,” Athos whispers, his voice hitching, and at that moment, with Athos’s words it becomes real; Athos never curses, never uses foul language, and the truth of what everyone has been trying to tell him, what he already knows, hits him like a freight train. 

He throws his head back and screams.

 

*****************************************

 

“Aramis, call his parents, tell them he’s unwell, but nothing more, explain that they need to get over here as soon as possible,” Treville is saying but Aramis can barely focus. His sitting on the carpeted floor, beside the sofa, stripped down to just his day-old jeans and sweaty t-shirt and he literally cannot move, nor does he want to.

After he and Athos had dragged the devastated d’Artagnan to his bedroom, Aramis had done something that he’s fully and completely ashamed of; he’d sedated him. He’d really had no other choice, the boy was literally kicking and screaming and the bandage on his side was spotted with blood and Aramis used the syringe he’d brought with him from the med-kit, _just in case_ , and within moments the boy had slumped bonelessly in Athos’ arms into oblivion. 

Athos hasn’t moved from his side. He’d stripped off his jacket and shoes and climbed up onto the bed beside him while Aramis checked d’Artagnan’s wounds and when he was done, Athos pulled the duvet over him and sat silently beside him, one hand tangled in his long, messy hair, his expression blank and his eyes dry. Aramis, physically and emotionally exhausted, had left him in Athos' care and gone back into the living room where he’d literally collapsed before making it to the sofa.

Treville was making tea, which was so ridiculously normal it made Aramis want to giggle. And he was making phone calls; Sylvie, Lemay, Ellie, and since Aramis didn’t do it himself, d’Artagnan’s parents. They were about an hour out though, on their way home from a visit to friends and Treville had told them not to hurry, obviously not wanting them to end up in a panic on the motorway. He simply told them him he’d stopped by for a visit and found d’Artagnan feeling under the weather and that he’d gladly stay until they arrived. 

“Aramis, this is very, very difficult for all of us, but I need you to pull yourself together,” Treville says sternly and he sets mugs and the teapot on the dining table. The older man comes over and reaches out a hand to pull him to his feet and Aramis reluctantly takes it and lets their former boss help him up.

“How’s Porthos?” he asks with a tired sigh, as Treville pours him tea. He gratefully takes the steaming mug and sits at the table.

“Physically? Greatly improved, Lemay’s arranging for him and his family to be flown home the day after tomorrow by private government jet.”

Aramis nods. “And mentally?”

“He barely speaks, not even to Marie, but when he does it’s only to tell Ellie that he promised to keep her safe and he’d failed,” Treville replies, clearly distressed. “You lot are going to have to help him understand that it’s not his fault, it’s no one’s fault but that murderous bastard Rochefort’s!”

Treville takes a seat across from Aramis. “Listen, you need to find the boy’s service weapon and his personal firearm, we can’t leave him alone with any weapons in the flat,” Treville tells him grimly.

“I agree, but he won’t be alone, I’m not leaving him like this, take us off the roster, Treville…for the foreseeable future,” he says, not even noticing that he hadn’t called him ‘sir’ as they all usually did out of respect for his position. “Besides, wild horses couldn’t drag Athos away, he’s the only one who really knows what he’s going through anyway,” Aramis reminds him, referring to the deaths of Athos’ family under mysterious circumstance years ago. 

“Yes, of course,” Treville murmurs absently. Aramis is sure that the older man knows more than the rest of them do, but he doesn’t push, that’s Athos story to tell, if and when he’s ever ready, not Treville’s.

Aramis glances over at the teapot, it’s pink with tiny flowers painted on it and Constance loved that ugly old thing, picked up in a junk shop while the two of them were on assignment in Canterbury a few months earlier. 

“What will we to do without her?” Aramis asks, brokenhearted, fresh tears rolling down his face and into his unkempt beard. “I always knew this could happen to one of us, but I’d never prepared myself for it, even when that foolish boy lay at death’s door on more than one occasion I did not accept that we would lose him…or anyone else…” he says on a sob. Grief was something completely foreign to Aramis; he’d lost a few friends while in the military but no one who he was particularly close to, like family, even all his grandparents were still alive, his parents in excellent health, travelling the continent and enjoying their retirement. Constance is the first person he’s lost that he’d loved dearly, like a sister, like a beloved friend and confidante, and he simply doesn’t know how to deal with it. 

Treville hands him a Kleenex and then uses one to wipe at his own tired eyes. “I don’t know, lad, I truly don’t know what to say or what to do. I chose her you know, personally, when I was recruiting from MI5’s list of top graduates. If I hadn’t, she’d be happily working for some big tech company, probably making loads of money with her skills and not…”

“That’s rubbish,” Aramis scoffs, cutting him off, “she could have been living her nice secure life and been hit by a taxi or chocked on a peanut, none of us knows what could happen a minute or a day from now!”

Trevilles baulks. “Yes, but I put her in the line of fire, Aramis, me, personally!”

“You made her an offer and she accepted. And she loved every damned minute of it,” Aramis says vehemently. “The excitement, the adrenaline…her relationship with the lad, she was crazy about him, spent every moment that we were alone talking about him, worrying about him…loving him…” he adds with profound sadness.

Treville nods, his gaze fixed out the balcony doors where the lights of the city are twinkling and people go about their business, laughing, drinking, sleeping, making love, and Aramis hates the whole world at that moment and all the people in their little bubbles who have no idea that a beautiful, vibrant, brave young woman had given her life for her country just a day before, and that her beautiful, vibrant brave young fiance was screaming in his grief while they went about their business, blissfully unaware, their lives untouched.

 

*************************************

 

Athos, sadly, is no stranger to loss.

He’d spent the better part of his adult life grieving, trying to move forward and put the pain behind him, but even at his happiest moments, it still lingered, like a unhealed wound, just below the surface of his consciousness, and it was moments like these that he felt like that scab had been ripped off and he was haemorrhaging all that pent up anguish, all over again. Back then, when he’d spent those first weeks after in that huge estate, ignoring the morbidly curious and the vultures who he’d called friends, wrapped up in his self-pity and grief, he’d barely noticed Treville, taking care of his affairs, keeping the true story out of the press and making sure justice would be been done quietly. When it was all done and everything wrapped up neatly, Treville had forcibly sent him to be trained in the military, where the pain killers and the whiskey had been weaned out of his system and a new man had emerged. But he was nothing like the one he’d been before and there are moments when Athos mourns the loss of not only his family but of the young and carefree man he’d once been.

Now, the pain of the loss of his family wasn’t at the forefront, the agony he feels was different, the bleeding in his soul was for another, for _two_ others, and again, it threatens to crush him. It’s only for the sake of the boy, who now lays unconscious and momentarily unaware, that he knows that this time, he has be strong, there won’t be any solace for him in a handful of Oxy or at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, this time he needs to be the rock, he needs to be d’Artagnan’s _Treville_ so to speak, or else they could easily lose the boy as well.

Their beloved Constance is gone, and he will have to face that horrible, unspeakable loss at some point, but for the moment, his only concern is the young man she’s left behind. He’d loved her with a passion and a devotion that Athos had rarely seen in his lifetime, not even his obsession with Anne could come close to what d’Artagnan felt for Constance. She was his beacon, his north star, he’d have faced the devil himself to keep her safe and now Athos has no idea how he will move forward without her. 

Time heals all wounds, they say, but this boy is different, he was raised by loving parents who instilled kindness, generosity and passion into their vivacious son and he _feels_ more, and _loves_ more than most people do. On the one hand Athos almost thinks his parents have done him a disservice, there isn’t a mean bone in his body and there have been moments that he’s been sorely disillusioned and unprepared to face the madness of the world he lived in. On the other, it’s refreshing to have someone who is not jaded and suspicious, like he, Aramis and Porthos are, as part of your life, and d’Artagnan and Constance had always been the proverbial ‘ray of sunshine’ in their little family. 

D’Artagnan stirs and he groans and Athos watches, tense and rigid as he opens his eyes sluggishly, and blinks, his expression morphing from confusion to shock, as he remembers the reason that Athos is in the bed beside him. He opens his mouth, as if he will start screaming again but he doesn’t, instead an anguished sob begins in his throat and morphs into harsh, angry weeping. Mindful of his injuries, Athos carefully pulls him up into his embrace, holds him close and lets him cry.

Minutes pass, and d’Artagnan’s mother appears at his bedroom door, her eyes red and wet, her face blotchy and she goes around the other side of the bed and sits, and puts her hands on his back. D’Artagnan goes still, but when he realizes it’s his mother he lets out an awful wail and twists his body around and falls into her lap. She gathers him close and speaks to him softly and soothingly, like only a mother can, and Athos, his eyes now damp and his heart aching, silently slips out of the room, leaving the two of them to share their grief alone.

To be continued.....


	2. Chapter 2

How in the world will he go about explaining everything to Constance’s family, Treville has no clue.

From what Aramis has told him, Constance’s mother and sister – her father had passed when she was still a teenager – have no idea what she did for a living, she’d never even mentioned working for the MoD, which was the standard line allowed for friends and family. Where would he start? From the fact that she was a covert agent for the government or that there's nothing to bury aside from her mangled engagement ring. He’d have to go into excruciating detail about the explosion, the DNA evidence, about how she’d come to be in a deserted army barracks in France, and how her fiancé was nearly incoherent and had been injured himself recently in the line of duty and would not be able to speak to them at the moment.

Treville wonders if he should pass it off to Lemay, he’s too close to this and he’s afraid that might lose his composure. But that would be despicable, he acknowledges, Constance was his operative, his beloved friend, he’d recruited her, been responsible for her training and had been her Team leader for almost all the years she’d been with the Agency. Her tragic death will hang like an albatross around his neck and his heart for the rest of his life. It’s his responsibility to speak to her family and his alone.

He knows they’ve been informed of her passing already, minus the details, in person by Athos and Tom, and her mum’s also been in contact with d’Artagnan’s parents, but the boy himself, that’s another story altogether. He’s barely functioning, refuses to see or speak to anyone and won’t take care of his still healing wounds and Aramis has had no choice but to take the nurse from Marie’s school, Reina, to his flat once a day to take change his bandages and make sure he’s healing properly. 

Athos, to Treville’s great surprise, and _relief_ , has not crumbled. He’d expected it, the man had faced enough loss for ten lifetimes but instead he seemed to channel all of his pain into strength. The first thing he’d done was to deposit twenty thousand pounds of his own money into d’Artagnan’s bank account, so that the bills would continue to be paid by direct debit since the MoD has probably already cut Constance’s salary, _vultures_ , Treville thinks angrily, and he’d also instructed his attorney to handle all the legal affairs. Athos has clearly stated that he does not want the insurance companies or the banks to bother the grieving lad, he’s taken on all the responsibilities personally so that d’Artagnan will be left in peace. This reminds Treville of another place and another time, and what might have been but thankfully hadn’t come to pass, and he is very proud of the man that Athos has become.

Treville has yet to see Porthos, who’d arrived back in London the previous day but he knows from Aramis that he is not handling it well. Ellie and Marie are of little help because Constance was so close to them as well so Aramis, bless him, has been running back and forth between Porthos and D’Artagnan, trying to do whatever he can to help his brothers face the tragedy. It hasn’t been easy on Aramis though, and Treville knows he’s run himself ragged.

The rest of Team 3, Lemay, d’Artagnan’s colleagues, including Sylvie’, have all tried to see the lad, but he refuses. Most of them had gone round to Porthos’ the evening before but although he’d received them, he’d barely interacted and so they’d ended up visiting with the heartbroken Ellie instead, Sylvie remaining late into the evening to help her unpack and put the house in order.

As for what exactly had happened in France, well that is still a subject that hasn’t been tackled yet. Team 3 did not find Rochefort, despite credible evidence to his presence in France and specifically in or around the area of the deserted army barracks where Constance and a French commando were killed. Treville wants to give them a few more days before calling them to Whitehall, Porthos included, for a proper debrief. He is aware of the gist of it and knows that none of his people are to blame, but that hasn’t prevented the lot of them for feeling responsible. How he will get them to accept that, Treville doesn’t know, but if they are ever to function as a Team again, they’ll need to get their heads straight.

He lets out a long, exhausted sigh and opens his laptop and searches for a train ticket for Preston; Constance’s mum deserves the truth and the sooner they speak, the better for everyone. He’s about to pay for his ticket when he goes back and changes the number of seats from one to two, adding one for Lemay, and he proceeds to the check out and pays. When he’d been a Captain in the military it had often been his duty to speak to the loved ones of fallen comrades so this certainly won’t be the first time, nor will it be the last, he thinks grimly.

But this time…this time it’s different, and he simply can’t face going alone.

 

***************************************

 

Fifteen days after Constance’s death, Aramis’ finds that years of carefully cultivated fortitude and resilience begin to crumble under the weight of d’Artagnan’s willful decline into self-destruction.

He’s spent the past two weeks walking on eggshells, running interference with visitors, darting back and forth between Porthos’ house and d’Aragnan’s flat, fielding endless phone calls from friends, coworkers and solicitous acquaintances, and he’s fucking wrecked.

Somewhere in there though, in between all the exhaustion and the sadness, a tiny ray of sunshine has appeared, peeking through dark clouds around Aramis’ heart and reaching his tired soul. That ray of sunshine is Reina, who’d been taking care of d’Artagnan’s healing gunshot wound. Aramis had been picking her up after work at the school, every day for a week to tend to the boy, who would simply lay there, listlessly, as if there was no one else in the room with him and simply let her do what was necessary. On the third day she’d invited Aramis up to her flat for dinner and within moments of shutting the door behind them they were fucking, right there, her skirt pushed up around her waist, her tights ripped to shreds and her legs wrapped tightly around his bum while Aramis, trousers around his thighs, held her up against the wall beside the door, and she’d whispered very naughty things in his ear. 

When it was over, Aramis had felt ashamed; he’d planned on something a lot more…respectable with this girl, who he’d later found out was no older than d’Artagnan, but she’d assured him she was no blushing virgin and had wanted him as much as he did her, possibly more. Aramis hopes she’ll be patient and wait for him, he hasn’t met a woman like her in a very long time and he’s decided that he’d like to see where it could go and he’s gotten the idea that she’d like to as well.

After, over takeaway boxes and a few bottles of wine, she’d listened, patiently and sympathetically, as he’d poured out all his pent up frustrations and grief, and spoke about the hours spent trying to coax Porthos back into the world of the living and d’Artagnan to simply eat and dress. None of this had been a burden to Aramis though, these people are his family, Constance his sister and Porthos and d’Artagnan his brothers. But while Porthos at least takes care of himself and his healing injuries, d’Artagnan had deteriorated drastically and Aramis finds himself at wit’s end.

His mother has been going by his flat less frequently, since he always manages to make her cry. Now she passes by every other day, very early in the morning before d’Artagnan gets up, to take him food and clean up the flat and then she goes to work without even waking him. After the first few days had passed and the shock faded, he’d become surly and angry, and he disregards everyone and anyone he comes into contact with. For the moment, that would be his parents, Athos, and himself, since he refuses to allow anyone else into the flat. He alternates between angry abuse and sullen silence, and he spends most of his day in the spare room, ignoring the world around him, curled up on the sofa since he won’t to sleep in his bed anymore, the bed he had shared with Constance.

Earlier this morning, his mother had called both him and Athos, practically hysterical, to tell them that the door to d’Artagnan’s flat had been locked and bolted from the inside. Alarmed, Aramis had called Porthos, the only person he knows that can get past a deadbolt and he and Athos had gone to pick up their mending brother, all three of them terrified of what they might find once inside. It took some creative manipulation to keep his parents away…just in case…and they’d reluctantly believed Athos' lie when he’d assured them in that very respectable tone he reserves for occasions like this, that d’Artagnan had finally answered his phone.

As expected, Porthos gets past all the locks with ease. The big man has made an almost full physical recovery, but as for his mental state, he’s still all over the charts. And he has yet to see d’Artagnan, who he expects to blame him for Constance’s death because of that stupid promise he’d made him in the hospital the night before they’d left for France. 

Breaking and entering accomplished, the three men enter the flat and stop dead in their tracks.

The kitchen cupboards are open and just about every plate, every glass and every bowl is smashed or thrown around the flat. Whatever hadn’t been broken on the tile floor of the small kitchen is scattered randomly around the carpeted living room-dining area. Aramis is surprised that none of the neighbours had called the police, the noise must have been spectacular, but he’s thankful for small mercies and the three of them step over the mess and walk quietly down the hallway. As expected, they find d’Artagnan’s bedroom empty and the door to the spare room locked. Porthos makes quick work of the flimsy lock and stands back, clearly apprehensive, and Athos and Aramis enter the small room tentatively. 

D’Artagnan is lying on the carpeted floor, curled up foetal, pillows and blankets spilling off the sofa as if he’d fallen off it in the night. Aramis, heart pounding, drops to his knees and with shaky hands searches for a pulse. As soon as he touches the boy he realises that he’s freezing cold, the whole flat actually is cold, as if he’s deliberately turned off the heat. With Athos’ help they turn him over gently and try to wake him  
.  
“D’Artagnan,” Athos says softly, stroking his hair, “open your eyes, lad, are you ill?” he asks carefully.

Aramis is taking his pulse and checking the healing wound on his side when d’Artagnan’s eyes open abruptly. 

“What’re you doing here?” he growls, his expression instantly surly.

With Athos’ help they manage to pull him up from the carpeted floor and the minute he’s on the sofa he shrugs them off angrily. “I’m not in the mood for company today,” d’Artagnan huffs and he falls back onto the cushions, curls up and shuts his eyes. To Aramis he looks horribly skinny, frighteningly pale, and he’s wearing the same clothes that he’d had on two night prior, when he’d practically pushed Aramis out the door. His hair hangs lank and unwashed and his eyes…his eyes are red and bloodshot and horribly swollen from crying, and Aramis feel utterly bereft.

Athos, infinitely patient, attempts to gently coax him back to awareness, and he asks the boy if he’d like to go home with him, to get out of the flat for a few hours, but d’Artagnan reacts with uncharacteristic violence and practically punches the other man, giving him a mighty shove to his hip that sends Athos staggering backwards. 

“Sod off, will ya? Who the fuck told you lot to come ‘ere anyway?” he hisses.

Athos of course says nothing…but Aramis sees red.

“Right, you have one minute to get up and get yourself into the shower or I swear I will carry you there myself,” he informs him decisively, fully intending to carry through with his threat. D’Artagnan is clearly on his way to suicide by neglect and he refuses to see their youngest simply waste away and die. 

“Get the fuck out of my flat!” d’Artagnan replies through clenched teeth, emphasising every word, his eyes blazing with fury and fortunately, that’s when Porthos decides to enter the room, his appearance momentarily shifting the dynamics of the situation.

“Come on, boy, time to get up,” Porthis cajoles gently and d’Artagnan, visibly startled by the big man’s presence is shocked into silence. He blinks, his eyes quickly filling with tears and he bites back a sob. 

“It’s…it’s good to see you brother,” he tells Porthos sincerely, his voice breaking, tears spilling down his pale face. “But I’m not feeling well today and would prefer to be alone,” he adds, sniffling, his voice dull, his expression lifeless.

Aramis sighs tiredly and opens the window a crack and starts picking up random rubbish strewn around the floor; some empty plastic water bottles and twist caps and a lot of used Kleenex. There’s no plates though, no packets from biscuits or crisps, not even a takeaway carton.

“When was the last time you ate something?” Aramis questions d’Artagnan tersely.

“Oi, are you my mother now?” he demands, challenging, and Aramis has to fight the urge to slap him. 

“No, I’m not, thank God, but yours did call me this morning, hysterical and terrified that something had happened to you, don’t you think you owe her a bit more respect than locking her out?”

“I don’t owe any of you anything! And I certainly don’t need the lot of you, breaking into my ‘ome, and telling me what to do!” he spits out furiously. 

“D’Artagnan, please, enough of this nonsense lad, you need a bath and some food and you have a doctor’s appointment at four, you have to get up,” Athos implores, and Aramis once again inwardly commends him for remaining so calm since he himself is about ready to put all six-foot-one of him over his knee. They’ve already lost Constance, he’s not going to let d’Artagnan slip away from them as well.

D’Artagnan blatantly ignores Athos, staring up at the ceiling, arms crossed over his chest like a sullen teenager and Aramis decides he’s had enough.

“Last warning, get up on your own or I’ll drag you to the bathroom and throw you in the tub with your clothes on,” Aramis tells him in a deadly calm tone, giving d’Artagnan one final chance to comply.

“Last warning, you fucker, get the hell out of my flat!” he replies in the same tone as Aramis had used, mocking him, and that’s it, Aramis finally explodes. He grabs him by the shoulders and drags him to his feet, and with Porthos’ help they get him to the bathroom, d’Artagnan cursing a blue streak and fighting them every step of the way. They manage to get him into the tub, still clothed as promised, and Aramis turns on the water.  
D’Artagnan lets out a loud howl as the cold water hits him and Porthos shoos Aramis out of the way and quickly adjusts it until it warms up. 

“Get out of those clothes, lad, I’ll wait here with your towel,” Porthos instructs him firmly and although Aramis hears d’Artagnan cursing them six way from Sunday he finally undresses and he tosses his wet clothes out from behind the curtain. Porthos picks them up from the floor silently and puts the dripping garments in the washer behind the bathroom door. 

Leaving d’Artagnan to Porthos, Aramis finds that Athos has retreated to the kitchen and has begun sweeping up the mess. There’s no way the Hoover will pick it all up, they need to get rid of the big pieces of broken glass and crockery first and Aramis works silently beside him, collecting the larger bits and putting whatever is unbroken on the dining table. When they’re done, Aramis gets the vacuum from the closet in the spare room, and when they manage to get all the shards off the floor and the carpet they take the two large rubbish bags they’ve filled out into the hallway to be dumped in the recycling bin later on. 

“There’s food in the fridge, labeled and dated, and most of it’s fresh. Let’s see if we can get him to eat,” Athos says wearily and Aramis can’t remember ever seeing Athos look so tired and subdued, while Porthos has apparently allowed his unfounded guilt to eat away at his very soul. It’s devastating to see them all wallowing and suffering like this, especially when they need to be strong for each other; Aramis feels like he’s desperately clinging to the frayed ends of the broken string that binds them all together, and frankly he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold on.

“Weren’t you here yesterday?” Aramis asks. “Was he like this? Did he eat anything?”

“Yes I was here,” Athos replies defensively, “but I can’t force food into his mouth or manhandle him into the shower like you lot did on my own. Where were _you_?”

“Running errands for Ellie, and then I needed to eat, shower and sleep, I’m not a robot, Athos, although to be honest you seem to have turned into one, at his childish beck and call, silent and stoic when he’s surly and tripping over yourself when he’s not.”

Athos baulks. “He’s going through hell, Aramis, he needs patience and support, not anger and censure.”

“True, but he also needs to eat and bathe and wear clean clothes! Look, we can’t go on like this, brother, not him, not us, we need to get him out of this flat to begin with and he needs to start taking care of himself. And you’ve got to stop doing everything for him, shielding him from the outside world, he has to face up to his responsibilities,” Aramis tells him firmly, worried not only for the boy but for Athos as well.

“Aramis, it’s only been two weeks, he’s not ready to take on all that. And he wouldn’t even go to Preston with us for the funeral, how are we going to convince him to go anywhere else?”

To everyone’s complete shock, d’Artagnan had announced that he was not going to attend Constance’s _farce of a funeral_ and go through the motions of burying an empty box. Aramis had been tempted to hogtie him and throw him into the back of the car, but Constance’s mother had told Athos that she understood his pain, she’d lost her husband quite young, and although she was mourning for her daughter, her heart was also breaking for her fiancé.

“We need to get that bloke Rory over here, I’m sure he can help, he has in the past,” Aramis decides, referring to d’Artagnan’s MoD appointed therapist.

“Yes, that’s an excellent idea, I’ll ring him. In the meanwhile, he must go to his follow-up with the neurologist today, how the hell are we going to get him there?”

Aramis lets out a bitter laugh. “We can always sedate him, this way we won’t have to listen to him whining and bitching the whole way there.”

“If you would just fuck off like I asked you to you won’t have to ‘ear me whining and bitching,” d’Artagnan says from where he’s standing in the hallway, just beyond the kitchen, barefoot and bare-chested in a pair of track suit bottoms that barely stay up from all the weight he’s lost. He has a dry bandage on the wound in his side, probably applied by Porthos and Constance’s mangled engagement ring hangs from a black string around his neck, settled over the awful scar on his sternum; seeing it destroyed like that makes Aramis physically cringe.

“Behave, lad,” Porthos warns gently. “Aramis has been by your side from day one, he loves you, there’s no need to be a twat.”

“If you all love me so much you can respect my privacy and go home and get on with your lives, I’d like very much to be alone, thank you,” he snarls in reply.

“Right then, so we should leave you here alone, despite the fact that you clearly refuse to take care of yourself, you won’t go out the door, not even for your doctor’s appointments or to have your wounds treated! You’re obviously unwell and probably haven’t eaten in days, and you’re parents are beside themselves with fear for your safety!” Aramis spits back, aching for him and yet wanting to strangle him at the same time. 

“Why does it even matter to you anymore, Aramis? Hmn? Tell me, why do you even care?” d’Artagnan questions curiously, tilting his head to one side. “Nothing’s the same, everything we all had together is gone… _she’s_ gone…you should all move on with your lives and just let me be,” he tells the three of them tonelessly, and his expression can only be described as defeated, utterly and completely defeated.

Aramis feels numb and shocked and he can’t hold back the tears that have been hovering from the minute they’d found d’Artagnan sleeping on the floor, looking all of twelve, curled up in a protective ball, desolate and alone.

“If you can’t work out why I care, you stupid boy, then I probably should walk out and never come back,” Aramis says on a sob, and Porthos, who looks stunned and gutted, yanks Aramis into his embrace and weeps right along with him.

They stay like that for a long moment and eventually, Porthos pulls away and sinks down tentatively beside Athos, who’s sitting on the sofa with his face in his hands, shoulders shaking, weeping quietly, while d’Artagnan watches the three of them silently, looking for the most part shell-shocked, and suddenly, all the fight seems to drain out of him. He drops to his floor gracelessly and pulls his knees up to his chest, curling up tight against the wall as if he can make himself disappear.

“She’s dead, you fucking bastards, do you know what that means?” he asks hoarsely, pushing himself tighter into the little corner between kitchen wall and the hallway. “She’s never fucking coming back!” he cries, angry and despondent and sounding very much like a small child. “I’ll never see her face again,” he whispers, his hands clutching at his long, damp hair as he rocks back and forth, continuing to mutter those words to himself, over and over again.

Aramis closes the gap between them in three long strides and he kneels down beside him, face still streaked with tears, heart shattering for the boy they all love so dearly. “We know, d’Artagnan, and that’s why we can’t lose you too,” Aramis whispers brokenly, taking his face in both hands and forcing him to look at him. “You’re the most selfless person I’ve ever met, if you don’t care enough to survive this for yourself, then do it for us, because we’ll be lost if you don’t,” he says imploringly. 

D’Artagnan looks truly startled by Aramis’ confession, his entire body going rigid as he searches Aramis’ face for something to back up his words and when he seems to find what he’s looking for he collapses forward, like a puppet with broken strings and he lets Aramis hold him while he weeps.

 

To be continued…..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next part; Porthos tells us _exactly_ what happened in France and Aramis, after being pushed too far, decides he can no longer watch the train wreck. And just when things seem to be looking up, Athos gets a phone call from Ryder that makes what’s already happened to our beloved Musketeers look like a trip to Disney. Buckle up, the ride just became very bumpy……..


	3. Chapter 3

Over a month has passed since the loss of their beloved Constance and things have not improved nearly as much as Porthos had hoped they would.

During that time, d’Artagnan has gone from an angry, weeping mess to what Porthos can only describe as a zombie.

He still sleeps on the sofa in the spare room, only now he’s opened it up and he sleeps on the pull-out instead of cramming himself into the small two-seater. He showers most days, eats at least one meal, and washes his clothes without his mother’s prompting. He even tidies up here and there although his mum and Ellie have been doing most of the proper cleaning. He’s swapped his Audi for his motorcycle and his beloved car in now in his parents’ garage, collecting dust. But he barely speaks, hardly interacts and since he’s still not cleared to work he disappears for hours on that wretched bike of his even though he’s not fully recovered from the hostage incident. 

The oddest thing he’s done is cut his hair very short, almost military short. Porthos is aware of the fact that in many cultures hair is cut short or even shaved off when a loved one dies, but he can’t imagine d’Artagnan adhering to any kind of mourning ritual. When he’d first joined Counter-terrorism Porthos had told him to trim his hair and he’d happily done so, complaining that the long hair was becoming a pain in the arse anyway. Eventually though, he’d let it grow back since Constance had always preferred it long, making it known to all that she found him very attractive with his long, wild hair. Since Sylvie doesn’t enforce a strict policy regarding grooming - her rules are similar to those of SAS who want their members to blend in - Porthos had not suggested he cut it again. He’s also sporting a full beard, which makes him looks years older, like a complete stranger really, and since he acts like one as well it’s very unnerving. Porthos acknowledges sadly that their cocky, carefree boy is gone, replaced by a very weary and jaded man. 

In the last days of March he’d taken a tumble off the bike and hadn’t bothered to tell anyone or get himself checked out. They’d only found out because Aramis had seen some scratches on the paintwork and Ellie told Porthos she’d found a torn and bloody pair of jeans in his hamper. Aramis had been fit to be tied and ready to give him a bollocking but Athos, afraid for the lad’s mental state, wouldn’t let him and he’d insisted on handling it himself. In the end d’Artagnan had simply allowed Athos to scold him without the slightest protest; absolutely not normal behavior for someone as proud and defensive as d’Artagnan.

Porthos has recently returned to work, but Athos and Aramis are at loose ends and unsure how to go back to the Team without Constance. It’s too soon to even consider replacing her and Aramis has clearly stated that he does not have his head in the game at present and doesn’t consider himself mentally fit for the field. Athos on the other hand, as Team Leader although not usually in the field had told Treville that without Aramis, and with Constance’s spot empty, there really is no Team 3 at the moment. Treville, understanding their individual dilemmas and sensing Athos’ need to stay busy has appointed him as a temporary liaison between all the Agency Teams and his office, a position that doesn’t actually exist but that he is now considering creating since Athos’ zeal has shown Treville the benefit of actually having someone on staff in that role. The hours are flexible though, because according to Athos, d’Artagnan still needs some sort of supervision…and Porthos tends to agree.

Aramis, on the other hand, has no desire to do something provisional at Whitehall and has instead taken an extended leave of absence and although Louis baulked at his renowned Team 3 being out of rotation Treville had managed to convince him that the only way to rebuild the Team is to give them some time off to deal with the tragedy. The other Team members have voluntarily been reassigned, temporarily, and when Aramis is ready to return, Treville and Athos will decide what to do about filling Constance’s position. 

The official debrief, held as soon as Porthos had been physically able, had been one of the worst days of his life.

He’d left Whitehall in a cab, unable to drive his own car home after reliving that dreadful day. They’d all listened in horror as Athos gave testimony about the failed mission and its consequences. They’d gone to France on a credible tip picked up by Sylvie’s analysts. It appeared as if Rochefort had been hiding out in an abandoned military base outside of Paris. With the support of the French army, Team 3 had led an assault on the base, where Constance and a French commando were killed in an explosion while checking a barracks. The building blew up moments after Constance and the young man had gone inside and Porthos, overcome by horror and grief, had attempted to enter the burning building and was hit by flying debris when a smaller explosion followed the first. A French forensic team found human remains that would take months to identify, minute traces of the young commando’s and Constance’s DNA on some bits of clothing, as well as her melted and mangled engagement ring, but nothing else, because there was simply nothing else left of the structure or anything inside. 

In retrospect it could seem like they’d made rookie mistakes, maybe they’d been overly eager since most of them had been too close to the situation to begin with. But the independent review that Treville had ordered immediately had cleared them of any mishandling of the situation; everything had been done according to protocol and he’s tried to assure them, repeatedly, that none of them had done anything wrong.

Every member of their tight little family is suffering from the loss of their beloved Constance. Ellie is depressed, Marie is acting out, Athos is ridiculously calm and subdued and Porthos himself is wracked by guilt. It’s fallen to Aramis to try and hold them all together but the fact that d’Artagnan now simply exists and has not actually rejoined the living - neither is he showing any signs that he might do any time soon – makes spending time together painfully awkward and extremely difficult.

The previous evening Ellie had convinced them all to come over for a family dinner, Treville included, and it had taken a lot of cajoling on Porthos’ part to get d’Artagnan to agree…as well as Athos going over to his flat to gently but firmly persuade him to get into the car. It was Saturday so Ellie had been free to spend hours cooking up a storm, and Marie was very excited to spend time with Uncle ‘tan, who she’d only seen briefly once or twice since Constance’s death and on those occasions the little girl had shied away from him, his altered appearance and demeanor off-putting to her. Porthos and Marie had also helped with the preparations and he’d convinced his little girl that d’Artagnan was now ‘feeling better’ and he’d encouraged her to engage with him. The meal was ready at 7, Aramis and Treville seated in the living room with their drinks while they’d all patiently waited for Athos and d’Artagnan to arrive.

The first shock came when the two of them walked in the door, Athos trying to pretend that everything was normal while d’Artagnan, although not sullen, appeared so distant and detached he was like a complete stranger. He’d gone through the motions of greeting everyone politely but Marie would not approach him and to Porthos’ disappointment, he didn’t go out of his way to give her any attention either. Dinner had been strained, d’Artagnan’s plate still mostly full by the end and he’d silently fidgeted with his cutlery through most of the meal. He’d politely declined dessert and excused himself from the table to go sit in the chilly garden alone. 

Marie, emboldened by Porthos’ words earlier in the day had decided to go and sit with Uncle ‘tan. Porthos watched from the kitchen window as she’d sought him out in the gazebo, and found him sitting on one of the wrought iron chairs, smoking, a new and nasty habit he’d recently picked up. Porthos observed, heartbroken, as his little girl had tried to engage him but d’Artagnan seemed uninterested and quiet and Marie, hurt, had come back into the house in silent tears and disappeared up to her room. Worried about his little girl but also acutely aware of the lad’s fragile mental state he’d gone out to the gazebo to speak to d’Artagnan himself.

“I wish you’d bothered to say two words to her, mate,” Porthos had told him softly, sitting beside him, but their eyes were fixed away from each other, neither meeting the other’s gaze. “She was really excited to see you, lad.”

D’Artagnan put out his cigarette in a flower pot. “Sorry, I’m just not very good company,” he’d replied flatly without any trace of emotion.

“You could have made an effort, you know.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? She fuckin’ adores you, mate, one kind word would have gone a long way,” Porthos had replied, anger rising.

“Maybe,” he’d repeated, another cigarette lit in his hand and his face turned upwards, staring blankly at the cloudy sky through the latticed roof, appearing completely unaffected by his brother’s words.

Patience is not one of Porthos’ strong points, that’s Athos and Aramis’ department; Athos has that aristocratic calm that comes with being raised in among the titled and privileged and Aramis is like a sponge, he soaks up all the good and the bad and rarely does he lose his temper unless he is sorely pushed. Porthos though is more like d’Artagnan, or at least how d’Artagnan had once been, and he’d decided that if he didn’t go back into the house he might slap the boy, so he’d simply left.

The night ended awkwardly with d’Artagnan thanking them politely as if he’d just had dinner with passing acquaintances and he’d opted for a taxi, refusing Athos’ offer to drive him home. Porthos knew it was an act or self-preservation; Athos would have surely berated him, gently of course, but he still would have had to endure his brother’s censure.

It’s Sunday evening now and Porthos has spent the day in the city with Ellie, Marie and her parents, trying to push aside the cringe-worthy memory of the night before with a trip to the Science Museum and afternoon tea at Harrods, something Ellie and her mum love to do. Porthos though likes to take the piss out of the tiny sandwiches fit only for Marie, he says, and of course, the inflated bill.

His cell phone rings as he’s getting into bed next to a dozing Ellie and he sees it’s Aramis. He’s almost tempted not to answer; he’s had a lovely day with his family and Porthos thinks he deserves a break from the drama once in a while. But the ache in his heart that hasn’t faded, and probably never will, doesn’t allow him ignore the call. 

“What’s he done now?” Porthos says, getting directly to the point.

He hears Aramis sigh loudly. “He’s wrecked his bike, the ambulance took him to the nearest hospital, but he got up and left. We don’t know where he is.”

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” Porthos replies, angry enough to beat the shit out of the stupid fool, yet worried enough to start getting dressed. 

“Come get me, I’ll be downstairs in ten.” 

 

****************************************

 

Aramis picks up Porthos in his Agency-issue SUV before they going to get Athos, on purpose.

“Knowing Athos he’s just going to scold him and go out and buy him a new bike. You need to speak to Athos, he’s treating him like he’s some sullen teenager and it’s gone too far,” Aramis complains, at wit’s end. “He makes excuses for him, cleans up after him, answers his phone calls, it’s ridiculous! Yesterday I nearly bought myself a one way ticket to Tibet, I can’t watch this farce continue, brother, it has to end.”

“So why don’t you go? Call his parents, tell them ‘e’s their problem for a while,” Porthos suggests.

Aramis lets out a long breath. “Because Constance would have expected us to do this Porthos, to help him pick up the pieces. He’s our responsibility, brother, not theirs, they have no idea how to deal with any of this, they know nothing about what we do, and in truth they hardly even know him anymore. Besides, if I leave Athos will probably buy him a Ferrari while I’m away or something equally ridiculous. The boy hasn’t actually asked for a thing, but Athos seems to think that if he handles all his affairs and buys him expensive toys he will instantly be happy again,” Aramis complains, inching forward slowly in the Sunday night traffic. “Did you know he spent two thousand pounds on a new laptop for him and it was still sitting in the box on d’Artagnan’s dining table, unopened for days, until Uncle Athos opened it and set it up for him,” Aramis says sarcastically. “Apparently he still hasn’t used it.”

Porthos clears his throat. “Have you considered the fact that like myself, Athos might also be feeling responsible for all of this? She was with us Aramis, and she died just meters away…,” the big man tells him, his voice breaking.

“I know that,” Aramis says, heart clenching. “I was there too, Porthos and I also know it’s also not our fault, you need to get that through your head, brother, or you’re going to fall apart and what will happen to your family then? No matter how torn up I am inside it was her job. If it was any other one of us, the rest would be mourning but slowly moving forward. But we’re not because it was Constance, and she was not only his girl, she was also our girl, as misogynistic as this sounds I don’t think I’m cut out to work alongside of women anymore.”

Porthos lets out a sad little chuckle. “No, it’s got nothing to do with ‘er gender, mate, I promise, you’re not a misogynist or gender biased, or whatever they call it, I know you too well. We raised those two, Aramis, they were no more than two brilliant but snotty children when we met them and the rest of us were already old and angry and lonely. Athos ‘ad his mysterious past and his angst, you were dealing with your PTSD by jumping from one bed to another and I was miserable that Ellie ‘ad left me. We watched them kick ass and fall in love and become amazing people, it’s not that she was a woman, brother, it’s because she was _Constance_.”

Aramis feels his eyes well up for the first time in days but he pushes back the tears since they have other, more pressing issues at the moment. “She’s gone, though, Porthos and no matter how much that’s killing me it hurts much more to watch him fading into someone I no longer recognise. I’d thought for a moment there, after we’d found him sleeping on the floor, filthy and lost, that we’d gotten through to him. But now I see all we actually managed to do was get him to bathe and eat and apparently, to get on that fucking bike!” Aramis tells him, frustrated. “I know you lot think I should be more patient, and God knows I usually am, but he’s slipping away more and more, day by day. He just doesn’t care about anything, anyone or himself, and worst of all, he refuses to see Rory, his therapist. We had a massive row over it on Thursday and he locked me out. I’m going to discuss it with Sylvie, maybe she can insist that he go.”

They pick up Athos and go to d’Artagnan’s flat and they don’t find him there. The A&E nurse had told Athos that he’d been dazed and bloody but he’d disappeared before they could treat him. They have no idea where to find one six-foot-something, skinny, bloodied, banged-up idiot amongst the millions of people who live in London.

Aramis does not want to call his parents. They’re lucky that Athos had been called by the hospital and not them. According to the nurse who’d called Athos, she’d basically coerced him into unlocking his phone and then she’d dialed the first number on his call log, asking to speak to someone related to him since d’Artagnan had been confused and uncooperative. By the time the nurse had gone to arrange for him to be taken to radiology he’d literally made a run for it. Luckily she’d already noted Athos’ number on his admission papers and she’d called him back as soon as she’d realised he’d left. It’s possible that he’s at his family home or even at their café, but if he’s not, his parents will go mental. 

D’Artagnan’s phone doesn’t go to voicemail but he doesn’t answer it either. Aramis is about to suggest they try and track it when Porthos, seeming to read his thoughts, rings his office and tells one of his techs on duty to find the phone asap. 

They get a call back within minutes and Porthos chuckles. “Do you think Syvlie’s gonna reprimand me for abuse of power?” he questions.

“No, I doubt it, especially when she finds out we were looking for our wayward Musketeer,” Athos muses quietly and the reference to the old days makes Aramis feel nostalgic and very, _very_ sad.

They find him in the oddest place, the playground of Marie’s school, at least ten miles away from the hospital that he’d walked out of and Aramis truly hopes he hadn’t actually come all that way on foot.

He’s sitting on a swing, cigarette in hand and he’s shivering in his thin leather jacket. His face looks free from injuries, probably due to his helmet, but one leg of his jeans is shredded and bloody and he’s favoring his left arm, the one with the gunshot injury. Aramis is tempted to give him a mighty slap and the bollocking he deserves but he uses restraint and allows Porthos to take the lead on this one.

“Hey, what’re you doin’ ‘ere, lad?” Porthos asks softly, as if he wasn’t looking at someone who was covered in blood and had escaped a hospital casualty ward.

He’s got a beanie over his hair and his beard has been trimmed down neatly so he no longer looks like a rough sleeper. But otherwise, he looks horrible.

“Bike’s trashed,” he says in response, his voice emotionless. “She hated that thing, was always afraid I’d kill myself…or whatever.”

“The bike can be replaced,” Athos says immediately, which earns him a kick from Aramis; at least Athos has the decency to look contrite, Aramis notes.

“Yeah, but _she_ can’t,” d’Artagnan replies, matter of factly, stubbing out his cigarette on the frame of the swing set, a new one in his hand seconds later.

“Neither can you, lad,” Aramis tells him gently and takes a step forward, trying to get a better look at his injuries.

“Let Aramis have a look at your leg, d’Artagnan, that looks painful,” Athos implores, hands in his coat pockets, shivering. 

“It’s fine, I’ve ‘ad worse,” he replies somewhat ironically, since it’s true, but Aramis still must see how bad it is. 

“Come on, boy, just a peek, don’t be a baby about it,” Porthos tries, his tone light, obviously going for teasing but it falls flat. “At least let us give you a ride home,” Porthos reasons.

“It’s fine, you lot go wherever you were off to, I’m gonna sit here a little while longer.”

“D’Aratgnan, we weren’t _off_ to anywhere, we’ve been looking for you. Now you can’t stay here, it’s late and it’s fucking cold,” Aramis states, his patience waning. “Your leg could be fractured for all we know, you’ve got to let me see.”

“Porthos, I’m sorry about what happened last night, I was horrible to your little girl, do you think she’ll forgive me?” he asks softly. He sounds genuinely remorseful, but he ignores Aramis altogether.

Porthos gives him a small smile and he nods. “If you ask her yourself she will. She misses you.”

“Does she miss her as well?” he asks curiously, tilting his head slightly, as if he might be inquiring about the weather or the time and that’s when Aramis thinks that something is off.

“Nobody talks about her, it’s a _taboo_ subject, like she never existed,” d’Artagnan continues, mostly to himself, his gaze far away, “don’t say her name,” he whispers conspiratorially, to no one in particular, “like in Harry Potter, you couldn’t say that fucker’s name…what was his name anyway?”

“D’Artagnan, were you wearing a helmet when you crashed your bike?” Aramis asks tentatively, moving closer, suddenly very afraid.

He looks up and meets Aramis’ gaze, his eyes unfocused. Aramis struggles to tamp down his panic. “I think so, but I can’t remember…you know, maybe I wasn’t.” 

Athos gasps, his expression morphing from confusion to fear. The older man quickly closes the distance between them and he gently removes the beanie from d’Artagnan’s head and then he takes a step back.

“Aramis,” he croaks and Aramis surges forward, his stomach plummeting when he sees the bloody mess on the side of d’Artagnan’s skull. There’s blood running down the side of his neck, disappearing into his jersey and Aramis curses himself for not noticing it sooner.

“Porthos, bring the car all the way up the drive, as far as it comes,” he instructs calmly, tossing his keys to the big man and he checks the ghastly injury with shaking fingers. D’Artagnan’s got a huge gash that goes from the crown of his head to just below his ear and Aramis can’t tell how bad it is in the dark.

“God help us,” Aramis mutters, taking the lit cigarette from the lad’s shaking fingers and stepping on it. “Why in the world didn’t you let them treat you?” Aramis asks, livid. “You could have a serious head injury, what were you thinking?” he shouts angrily. “For fucks sake, lad, _why_ are you doing this to us?”

D’Artagnan doesn’t reply, he simply stares vacantly at Porthos’ retreating back as the big man hurries to bring the car and Aramis truly doesn’t know if he’s concussed or if he’s simply being a stubborn twat.

“D’Artagnan, look at me!” Aramis demands, gently turning his face but the boy refuses to meet his gaze. “Are you dizzy? Do you feel like you’re going to be sick?” 

Silence. 

“Answer me damn it!!”

“Aramis please…don’t,” Athos chides, looking truly shaken. Aramis lets go of d’Artagnan’s chin and moves away from him, fuming.

“Don’t what? Don’t give him the bollocking he deserves? He’s not a child, Athos!! You need to stop calling him one and stop treating him like one! You coddle him and look after him like he’s a helpless five-year-old! And Porthos is no better, he tiptoes around him, guilt-ridden over something he had no control over, something that none of us had any control over...” Aramis says hoarsely, pacing back and forth in front of them, incensed. “Have you forgotten that she was the first person I saw every day and the last before I went home at night, sometimes seven days a week, sometimes we’d be together around the clock, days at a time! I want to scream and break things and behave like a child too some days, but I don’t…I _can’t_ , for him, for the rest of you…for all of us! And none of you are helping me, I’m trying so hard, so fucking hard…” he cries, trailing off, utterly exhausted and incredibly weary.

“Aramis, I’m so sorry…” Athos begins quietly, but Aramis doesn’t want to hear it.

“That idiot was on his bike without a helmet, Athos! That stupid little _shit_ was on his bike without a helmet…he could have been _killed_!” Aramis shouts and he stumbles back a few steps, anguished. “He could have been fucking killed,” Aramis repeats dully, shaking his head, hands buried deep in his disheveled hair. “That selfish _twat_ would have left us literally broken in half, and the first thing you say to me when I have a go at him is _don’t_.” 

“Fuck it all…you know what? I can’t do this anymore,” Aramis spits out, literally at the end of his rope. “You and Porthos can deal with this, I can’t,” he mutters feeling completely defeated.

Athos looks shocked and confused but he doesn’t say a word, he simply rushes forward to grab d’Artagnan, who suddenly appears unsteady, as if he’s about to fall flat on his face off the swing. 

_I should take his pulse, check his pupils, see if he’s going into shock_ , Aramis thinks logically, but he doesn’t, he _can’t_ , he needs to leave now.

“Tell Porthos I’ll get the car tomorrow, or whenever, I don’t really care right now,” he says over his shoulder as he walks away, leaving Athos in the freezing playground with d’Artagnan leaning heavily against him, looking too stunned to speak.

Aramis feel his heart shatter into a million pieces as he goes but that doesn’t stop him, he just keeps walking.

 

***************************************

 

This latest and unforgivably reckless injury was the wake-up call that Athos himself had needed to finally accept that d’Artagnan required help, not coddling.

He and Porthos had taken him to their own medical facility, where Dr. Adams was luckily on call because one look at the three of them and she’d known that something was not right in their world. She’d ordered Athos and Porthos to the cafeteria for a much-needed coffee and assured them he would receive the very best care. Before leaving though, Athos had quickly informed the doctor of what had happened and she’d been visibly shaken and saddened by the news. There’s not a person alive who’d met Constance that hadn’t instantly liked her. 

A very contrite and extremely embarrassed d’Artagnan had been released two days later. Although he was still quiet and detached, he’d engaged with Athos on the ride home…mostly to apologise…more than he had in weeks.

A few days later Athos had decided that it was time he started facing his responsibilities. Aramis had been right, it had gone too far. They’d spent a few hours going over his finances and the legal issues, and d’Artagnan was staggered to find out that he owed Athos twenty thousand pounds. Athos had quickly assured him that it wasn’t a loan and that he didn’t want a penny back. The money was enough to float his mortgage for a few more months until he could refinance and make smaller payments now that there was only one paycheck coming in. Constance’s insurance would take months to sort out and Athos explained that his credit would be wrecked if he didn’t keep up with his instalments.

To say that the boy had been shocked would be an understatement. He hadn’t even wondered how his bills were being paid and why his electric hadn’t been shut off or his phone cut. Athos explained patiently that he’d been monitoring his accounts online – hacked by Porthos of course – and moving money around from his pay check and the joint savings to cover all the direct debits and there was the twenty thousand that had gone mostly to the mortgage. When they’d finished going over all of his finances, d’Artagnan had informed him sadly that he’d probably sell the flat anyway; living in it without Constance had become unbearable and he’d promised Athos to pay him back as soon as the flat was sold. Athos doesn’t intend to let that happen though, he has enough money for four lifetimes and frankly, nowhere to spend it and no one to spend it on.

The changes are small and subtle but Athos and Porthos begin to see a difference in d’Artagnan’s attitude. He’s more thoughtful and much less flippant although he’s still distant and prefers to keep to himself. Athos can accept that he needs time, as long as he’s taking small steps forward Athos considers it progress. 

During the day, he and Porthos are at work and at first it concerned them to leave him alone since Aramis is still AWOL, but they’d worried for nothing. Without any coercion from his brothers, d’Artagnan has started going for lunch his parents’ café every other day or so and he’s also taken some files from Sylvie to review at home.  
Yesterday he’d taken an Uber to Porthos’ house where he’d waited on the front steps for Marie to come home from school. When Ellie and Marie had found him sitting there, holding a stuffed toy, the little girl had instantly started to cry, but that didn’t stop her from wrapping her arms around Uncle ‘tan, who apparently ‘looked like he really needed a hug’. Ellie told Athos that d’Artagnan had been vastly apologetic and thoroughly embarrassed but Marie had quickly brushed it off and they’d spent the afternoon playing board games and colouring.

Despite all of this, Athos still finds him red-eyed and heartrendingly sad most evenings but the improvement in his attitude is enough for him and Porthos to be patient and content as he tries to move forward. 

None of them have seen Aramis since that night in the playground ten days prior but he texts Athos and Porthos sporadically to inquire if all is well. Their messages are short and to the point and he hasn’t revealed where he is, nor have they pushed. Without access to Aramis’ garage, they’d parked his car in d’Artagnan’s spot in his building, since the bike is gone – good riddance – and Athos knows he’ll return when he’s ready; they’ve all been to hell and back and they all need time.

Athos himself had just recently come to terms with Constance’s death; it had literally hit him one morning at Whitehall, after being offered condolences by one of the other Team leaders. He’d quickly closed and locked the door to his office and leaned back against the solid panel, sliding to the carpeted floor where he’d spent a good hour weeping silently, everything that had happened over the past weeks finally sinking in, and he only now realises that it truly feels like a part of him has been ripped away. Her loss is like a missing limb, leaving him feeling unsteady and unbalanced and he wonders how he’ll manage to get used to that; he’s already lost so much in his life, and it had taken Athos a very long time to move on. Now someone he’d allowed into his life has been taken from him again, and he isn’t sure exactly how he will cope. 

The lucky, or unlucky thing, depending on how you see it, is that Athos has responsibilities, people depend on him, lives depend on his clear head and composure and although it won’t be easy he knows he simply has no choice but to tuck Constance’s memory away in his heart, like a beloved and treasured keepsake, and move forward for the sake of the rest of his family and his Team.

And just as things are slowly starting to return to some semblance of normalcy Athos receives a very odd and disturbing phone call from Ryder.

It seems a woman had called the police earlier in the day to report a kidnapping. She claims to have seen a man use a taser on another man in the car park of her local Morrisons. The man with the taser dragged the other into his car, and drove away. The woman described the victim as tall, thin, wearing a dark knit cap and a neat beard. The police found the victim’s purchases in the parking lot and inside the bag they’d found the receipt. Upon further investigation the police used the receipt to track the credit card used to make the purchases and the owner of the card had been identified. Using CCTV they were able to get a clear shot of the victim. When the police found the victim in their database they’d called his employer immediately.

“Ryder, this is a very fascinating story and the police have obviously done an exemplary job with their investigation, but what has this got to do with me?”

“I wanted to tell you before Porthos, he sometimes…overreacts…and I was hoping you would come down here and we could maybe tell him together…”

“Tell him what?” Athos asks becoming impatient. He has a stack of files on his desk to be reviewed and an appointment with Lemay in half an hour and Ryder is talking in riddles.

“Athos, the kidnapping victim is d’Artagnan.”

“I’ll be there in 20,” he says woodenly, and hangs up the phone. He immediately texts the elusive Aramis as he slides into his suit jacket.

‘Something’s happened, can you come home?” he texts

‘ _Why? Has he managed to get a paper cut? Or did u buy him a new bike and he’s wrecked that 1 as well?_ ’ is the reply he receives

‘Neither, can you come? We need you, brother, it’s urgent’

‘ _Athos, I can’t deal w/ the drama, it’s 2 soon_ ’

‘Aramis, he’s missing, foul play, can you fucking come or not? This might have to do with France.”

_‘I’ll b there in 7 hours give or take’_

‘Thank you’

‘ _God help us_ ’

 

To be continued...


	4. Chapter 4

When D’Artagnan opens his eyes he immediately becomes aware of three things; he feels sick to his stomach, his head is spinning…and he’s utterly fucking confused.

He looks around, mindful of the vertigo and sees that he’s in a room with only a bed and what appears to be a toilet beyond an open door and not much else. The two windows on the opposite side of the room have been whited-out either with paint or some kind of spackling paste and they’re barred from the inside and secured with locks. He checks his pockets and finds that he doesn’t have his phone or his wallet or keys and he doesn’t remember how he’d gotten here, wherever here is.

Aside from definitely being drugged, it doesn’t feel like he’s been hurt or injured in any way but he also has no clue as to what’s happened to him.

He remembers going to the supermarket for a few things, walking out of the store into the car park, with the intention of getting the bus home, and then nothing. In their line of work something like that might not actually be considered shocking but usually he has an inkling of who his foe might be. This time, he simply has no idea. He hasn’t been on active duty for the past six weeks so he’s not involved in any on-going cases and it’s been over a year since he’d left Team 3; it’s possible that someone had been biding their time, looking for an opportunity to get him alone, but for what purpose? And there’s no way that Rochefort has gotten back into the UK, not when he’s wanted for treason...surely he would have been stopped...so what the bloody fuck?

On the positive side, he’s not dead and seems to be uninjured and there isn’t anything overtly threatening about his surroundings; he’s not in some dank basement or abandoned building, it seems as if he’s in a bedroom, in a house, lying on a bed with surprisingly clean-smelling linen and a warm blanket. Some even bothered to take off his trainers before tucking him in.

As soon as he gets his bearings the first thing he does is try the door, which of course is locked, and has been refitted so it opens outwards and most likely barred from the outside, since the wood doesn’t budge even the slightest bit when he puts all his weight on it. D’Artagnan tries the windows next. The metal bars are far too close together for him to fit through even if he could get one of them to open, which is pretty much impossible since they both have a thick metal rod bolted into the frame on either side of the bottom window, preventing it from being opened upwards. He has nothing to pick the sturdy lock on the bars with and nothing heavy enough to use to break the glass, especially since when he picks at the thick, white paint he finds old-fashioned safety glass that has a dense lattice pattern of narrow wires running through it. Frustrated, he goes to the bathroom, which is surprisingly clean, and lets the water run. When he sees that it’s not brown or rusty, he drinks a handful and looks in the mirror. 

A stranger looks back at him.

The cut on his forehead, a souvenir from the hostage situation is still an angry red, but not very long. His face is gaunt and thin – his own doing, that one – and his beard is scruffy again. His hair, which he’d cut short on a particularly bad day had been shaved away on one side after the accident with his bike and is still an uneven, stubbly mess. The healing cut is frightening, which is why he never goes out of the house without a hat, but it seems that along with his jacket, his beanie is gone as well.

He leaves the small bathroom and goes back to the door. No amount of shoving or using his weight against it makes any difference so with nothing else to lose, he starts pounding on the door loudly.

“Hello? Anyone there?” he shouts, his fist banging against the sturdy wooden panel. “Oi, open the fucking door if you want something from me!” he shouts angrily. 

D’Artagnan hadn’t actually expected anyone to answer or for the door to open, at least not at once, so when he hears the lock rattling and what sounds like a bar going up he takes a few steps back and braces himself.

“Move away from the door,” a voice tells him and he takes a few more steps backwards. The door swings open and the first thing he sees is the barrel of an Uzi submachine gun, held in the hands of a long-haired blond man who is none other than the elusive Rochefort himself.

“I’m going to kill you,” D’Artagnan says, without any preamble and completely unafraid.

“I’ll hold you to that, little Musketeer,” Rochefort says pleasantly. “It will be very interesting to see you try.”

D’Artagnan takes a few steps forward, not even sure himself what he’s going to do but Rochefort stops him by deliberately removing the second safety on his weapon. “Are you in that much of a hurry to die, boy?”

“You killed Constance, if I die taking you out I’m perfectly ok with that,” d’Artagnan tells him with deadly calm, meaning it.

Rochefort laughs and it’s an ugly sound, like the man himself. “My God, you truly are as tragic as I’d heard you are, I’m shocked you haven’t blown your brains out already. But I’m very glad you haven’t, that would have ruined all the fun.”

D’Artagnan clenches his teeth and his hands curl into fists. “I hardly even know you and you’d never even crossed paths with Constance, why us? Why did you target us specifically? Why did you kill her?” he asks, his voice cracking ever so slightly over those last words.

“All valid questions,” he answers matter of factly. “As for the first part, you and the girl were a means to an end; Treville. That holier-than-thou bastard ruined my career and nearly ruined my life. The pair of you were his Achilles heel, same for the rest of your pathetic team, the _youngsters_ , the _kiddies_ ,” he says sarcastically, using Aramis and Porthos’ favourite endearments, probably overhead while he’d been surveilling them at one time or another. “I had planned to expose all five of you actually, but my hacker wasn’t very good at her job so I settled for the baby Musketeers; they were all so disgustingly fond of the two of you, so in the end, it was perfect. 

“So at the first opportunity you killed her just to get back at Treville? Marcheaux tried that as well, and I sent that bastard to hell without a face in case you were wondering and I promise you're next!" d'Artagnan hisses. "What I don't understand is why; you hardly lost anything,” d’Artagnan says dully, “no matter what you think Treville might have done you still ended up Louis favourite, wasn’t that enough for you? Tell me, what kind of a monster just kills indiscriminately over a petty vendetta?” he asks, horrified and sickened. He’d taken the love of his life away from him over some ridiculous feud with Treville. Rochefort may have been kicked out of the Agency but he’d clearly landed on his feet, why had he risked it all for a grudge? 

“I was never Louis favourite you idiot boy! The only reason I was his adviser was because I knew too much about his extensively sordid affairs, the bastard couldn’t wait to find a way to be rid of me!” Rochefort spits angrily. "Don't worry, his time will come. And you’re right, you were barely a blip on my radar but as I searched for a way to destroy that back-stabbing maggot Treville, I realised that he’d be devastated if anything were to happen to any of you. So I set things in motion, I figured some Kazakh drug lord or maybe a Chinese gunrunner would kill the pair of you, hopefully all of you, and that would be the end of the infamous Team 3, Treville’s pride and joy, his golden boys…and girl, but that stupid slut from IT tipped you off. Naturally, I had her and her boyfriend killed, she really wasn’t very bright or very careful,” he says with a sneer.

“I can’t fucking believe what I’m hearing!” d’Artagnan cries, tormented, “how could you so flippantly take so many lives?”

“Let me ask you something, little boy, how many lives have you taken, hmn? How many times have you decided who will live and who will die for what you considered was a good enough reason? You’re no better than I am, you know, I’m just honest about it while you hide behind your job. I seem to recall hearing that you killed four men just a few weeks back, how did that feel, hmn? Did you enjoy it? Did you excuse yourself and put it behind you by saying you were saving lives?"

“How can you possibly compare what I do in the name of national security to what you’ve done in the name of revenge?” d’Artagnan demands. 

“You really are quite irritating, aren’t you? Now enough of your indignant outrage or I’ll take out a knee cap…or maybe another blow to the head, you’re looking a bit worse for wear, aren’t you, now?" 

“It doesn’t matter what you do to me, I’m sure the others have put it all together by now, did you know that there are a staggering 600,000 cctv cameras in the greater London area alone? I’m sure you did and if you think that you can lure them here to their deaths you’re delusional, especially after what you did to Constance,” d'Artagnan says hoarsely. “They won’t underestimate you again, Rochefort, they’ll descend on you with the wrath of God behind them…trust me…and they will kill you this time, I promise you.”

“Yes, yes, whatever you say,” Rochefort scoffs dismissively. “You have no idea what I’ve got planned, how many men I have at my disposal or what role you’ll play in all of this, and I suggest you don’t overtax that tiny brain of yours trying to work it out, you may break something.”

“No matter what this is and how it plays out, _you_ will be dead when it’s done,” d’Artagnan vows.

“Isn’t this where you say ‘you’ll never get away with this’? I was really hoping you would, I’ve always loved that line in films, had always secretly wanted someone to say that to me,” Rochefort says, chuckling, obviously completely, stark-raving mad.

“Let’s make a deal; I’ll say it, and I promise to make it sound very theatrical and dramatic, and then you let me break your neck. That’s how it usually goes, you know,” d’Artagnan tells him mockingly.

Rochefort lets out a hearty laugh. “You really are quite unimpressive. For the past how many years I’ve been hearing you described as ‘brilliant’ and ‘fearless’ but all I see is a sad, pathetic little boy with a big mouth who looks like he’s seen much better days. You know, I was going to give you a gift, but you’ve been quite nasty, so you’ll have to settle for a sandwich,” he says. “Ivan,” he calls out and well-dressed young man, Russian by his name and his features, comes into the room and tosses him a bag. D’Artagnan catches it more on instinct than anything else and he just throws it on the bed.

“Marcheaux hired Chechens, you’ve got Russians, what’s wrong with good old British thugs?” 

Rochefort laughs again, clearly finding this very entertaining, d’Artagnan thinks angrily. 

“I wonder if you’ll find it funny when Porthos rips your throat out?” d’Aragnan asks with faux amusement.

“Enough, you’re giving me a headache, eat your supper like a good boy and maybe you’ll get that gift I mentioned,” he says cryptically, backing out of the room.

“Nothing you can do to me matters, Rochefort…truly, when you accept that, you will also accept that I will do anything it takes to kill you… _anything_.”

“Let’s go Ivan, the drama is becoming frightfully nauseating,” he tells the Russian, who remains stoic and simply follows.

The door closes, a lock is turned and a heavy bar falls into place. D’Artagnan sits back onto the bed with an exhausted sigh and looks in the bag; two sandwiches from Marks & Spencer and a bottle of water. How bizarre, he thinks, that his captors would buy him food from Marks’ instead of somewhere more mundane. Unless M&S is the closest shop. He turns over one of the sandwiches and he smiles; the label has the location, at least he knows where he is. It could be helpful if he manages to steal a phone, or miraculously find someone sympathetic enough to get a message to his brothers. 

At this point though it’s not about escaping anyway, it’s all about killing Rochefort; for Constance, for Antonia and her partner, and for himself. If he dies doing so, it doesn’t really matter to him anymore, nothing else matters anymore. 

For the moment though, he’s locked in this room, weaponless and pretty much helpless, and there’s not much he can do. His empty stomach grumbling insistently, d’Artagnan eats, wondering what the fuck Rochefort was on about when he said he had a gift for him. 

He’s sure it can’t be anything good.

 

*******************************************

 

It takes 14 hours for Porthos, Athos, Tei and Danny to piece together the video feed from thousands of surveillance cameras, starting from the car park at Morrisons and leading them to the M20 where they lose the vehicle somewhere around Wrotham in Kent.

“M20, going southeast, Dover maybe?” Porthos asks, exhausted. It’s one am, approximately fifteen and a half hours since a housewife had seen d’Artagnan tased and shoved into a stolen Fiat Punto in the car park of a North London Morrisons and Porthos’ entire department is still in the office. D’Artagnan is generally well liked, but after what happened to Constance not even those who consider themselves just passing acquaintances are willing to leave their comrade to his fate. All of Porthos’ staff is working furiously to see where the car went next. Sylvie had locked-down all borders and ports from the minute she’d gotten the call from the police meaning everyone in and out of the UK will have to go through a manned border control station and no one will be able to use the automatic passport machines or fast-track; a logistical nightmare, especially for Heathrow and Southampton, but this is bigger than just d’Artagnan if it’s even remotely related to France.

“Possibly,” Athos says, frustrated, unable to hold back a yawn. “Do you think he’s still alive, brother?” he asks soberly.

Porthos nods slowly. “I do, if they’d wanted him dead they would ‘ave simply shot or stabbed him in the car park and driven off. The fact that they tased him instead of doing anything worse is actually encouraging.”

“He’s on medication, and has none of it with him, it’s all at home,” Athos says worriedly.

“Like what?” Porthos questions. 

“Antibiotics for the latest head wound, different ones for the gashes on his leg, something for his stomach and various supplements.” 

“Don’t worry about the antibiotics, it’s been at least 10 days, they’re probably nearly finished anyway.”

Athos and Porthos both look up, surprised, to find a very rumpled and exhausted looking Aramis standing in the doorway of Porthos’ office, suitcase in hand.

“You said seven hours, about fifteen hours ago, what happened?” Porthos asks, trying very hard to be civil.

Aramis grimaces and falls into a chair. “I was on standby for five different flights, it seems that Cyprus is very popular this time of year.”

“You should have called Lemay, he would have arranged it…” Athos begins but Aramis waves his hand tiredly.

“How do you think I managed to even get on stand-by? That man works miracles. In the end, he offered someone a thousand pounds to give up their seat on a BA flight that left Larnaca at 20:15, the woman was very happy to take his offer. Any news?” he asks, wincing as tries to get comfortable.

“Not much, just the car on the M20, heading south east,” Athos replies, disappointed.

Aramis nods. “Are we connecting this to Rochefort and France? Or do you have any other leads?”

“Nothing,” Porthos replies tightly. To say he’s angry with Aramis would be an understatement. This whole fucking mess has been a nightmare for all of them, but no one else had up and run. Their brother has some explaining to do.

“So what’s our next move?”

“You should probably go home and get some sleep, we’ve got it under control ‘ere,” Porthos says somewhat coldly, not meeting his gaze.

Aramis baulks. “I should go home? If I recall it was you lot that texted me to come back!”

Porthos grunts. “ ‘e did, not me, mate,” indicating Athos with a wave of his hand.

“What exactly are you trying to say, Porthos? That I don’t belong here because I nearly had a breakdown and needed some time to myself?”

“Gentleman, this is not helping,” Athos chides. 

“That’s pretty much what I mean. Everyone was close to a breakdown, brother, but no one walked away. And you didn’t only leave the boy behind, it was all of us suffering,” Porthos tells him pointedly. 

“That’s not fair, Porthos and you know it! Even you said we should hand him off to his parents!” Aramis reminds him angrily.

“Well I was wrong, and that was before I saw what happened to him when he wrecked that fucking bike! And the rest of us needed you too, you know, we should have all been together, especially now that she’s…” Porthos says pained, trailing off, still unable to accept that she’s gone. “It should have been all of us, helping ‘im and helping each other.”

“Porthos, I wouldn’t have been any help to anyone, trust me!”

Porthos scoffs. “Bollocks. ‘e thinks you’ve cut him off for good, by the way, he’s been sick over it ever since.”

“And neither of you could explain that I was shattered and needed some time away?”

“Aramis of course he understood, he’s not stupid, and he knows that he’s been difficult. He’s grieving, brother, not simply being childish though, but he also accepted that you needed time away from everything,” Athos explains sympathetically, but Porthos isn’t ready to cut Aramis any slack just yet.

“But ‘e’s still upset about it. He’s been asking all of us, every day, if we’ve ‘eard from you, said he was texting you but no reply, and then he tried to ring to apologise and you didn’t answer your phone!”

Aramis’ face falls and he looks visibly distraught and Porthos feels vindicated, he deserves to feel guilty, Porthos thinks with conviction.

Aramis looks like he’s about to say something but Tei rushes in and hands Porthos a printed sheet of A4 paper.

“We’ve got several sightings, in various places, all close to Dover,” he says excitedly. Should I get a helicopter ready?”

“Yes, the three of us will go and do reconnaissance, tell Ryder I want ‘is unit and Trip’s on standby, ready to fly when I call. I also need a car waiting for us at the helipad nearest these sightings and local police there as well, got it?”

“Yes, sir, weapons and kit?” Tei inquires.

“Mine are at my flat,” Aramis says, “so is the rest of my kit.”

“Mine too,” Athos add. “Tei, get us a car with a fast driver to take us to get what we need. We’ll be back before the helicopter arrives I’m sure.”

“You’ve got 40 minutes,” Porthos informs them sternly, getting his emergency bag out of the cabinet behind his desk. “They could be takin’ him to Calais while you’re collecting your deodorant and your pants,” he warns, still angry with Aramis. “Athos, bring something for the boy, a change of clothes, a track suit, whatever,” Porthos adds as they’re leaving. Fuck, he needs to call Ellie, get his weapons out of the safe, charge his phone and he has a massive headache to boot.

Why this and why now? Unless it’s directly related to France, Porthos doesn’t see much logic in it; d’Artagnan has been keeping a low profile since being shot by Marcheaux and leaving Team 3. His Unit’s operations always require he cover his face and he hasn’t been involved in anything recently that would make him personally stand out from the rest of his colleagues.

There’s always a chance that Rochefort has sold his true identity to some Italian drug lord, or Uzbek gunrunner but Porthos’ gut says that the huge bounty the government has on Rochefort’s head would have been more attractive to most criminals than simply taking revenge on d’Artagnan, who was only one of five people on Team 3 anyway. Too many questions, zero answers and Porthos is feeling very helpless at the moment. And terrified. He couldn’t protect Constance, he’d let her down, and if he doesn’t find d’Artagnan safe and sound he’ll be letting her down all over again. 

And he won’t be able to live with that.

 

**************************************

 

“So Porthos thinks I’m a first rate bastard apparently,” Aramis states, sitting beside Athos in the back seat of the government car that had ferried them to their respective flats. Fortunately they live near to each other so they’re still within Porthos’ 40 minute deadline. Neither of them much bothered with that they were taking, they simply grabbed some clothes, their weapons and their kit, and something for d’Artagnan to wear if needed. Aramis also grabbed the bag with his medical supplies, just in case.

“He’ll get over it,” Athos assures him. “He’s had a rough time of it himself, he continues to feels guilty and responsible…and Ellie is quite devastated, Constance was her closest friend,” Athos explains gently. “It’s not all about the boy, you know, not everything is always about him.”

Aramis barks out a laugh. “But isn’t it though, always _all_ about d’Artagnan?”

Athos frowns. “I find that somewhat inappropriate at the moment, brother, if you’ve got a problem with the lad maybe you should stay behind…”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it! I simply meant that he gets under our skin more than anyone else, and frankly, it’s not his fault, it’s ours. He doesn’t want or need us to worry about him more, but he’s one of those people what draws you in, makes you want to be close to him, to hear his laugh and see his smile. My grandmother had a saying about people like him, ‘born under a bright star’, people who draw others to them without actually trying.”

“I admit that he has charisma, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that he bewitches people,” Athos scoffs doubtfully. “He has a facetious and mischievous nature and he’s young and attractive, but mostly, he’s kindhearted, people are drawn to all of those qualities. And if any one of you had been tased and kidnapped in the car park of Morrisons I would be equally distressed and searching high and low for you, trust me, brother.”

Aramis sighs, not even sure if he knows what he means to say anymore. But he needed to get away exactly because d’Artagnan and his grief were getting too deep under his skin and watching him self-destruct and then nearly kill himself on his bike made something inside Aramis snap. It probably was selfish of him to leave all the responsibility for his well-being to Porthos and Athos, especially since d’Artagnan had literally nursed him through the gunshot wound he’d sustained before the holidays. The ten days away however had cleared his head and allowed him to grieve for the loss of their precious Constance, his friend and his sister, and one of the few people he can say he’s truly loved.

“So what are your theories about all this? Old enemy? Someone with a grudge? Or is this connected to France?” Aramis questions, forcing himself to put Constance out of his mind for the moment. Right now, he needs to focus on the living, he thinks rather morbidly, regardless of the lingering pain in his heart.

Athos shakes his head. “No clue, brother, truly. The man in the video is wearing a hat, non-descript clothes from any budget high street shop, and his face is obscured from every angle. The lads back at the lab are trying to see what they can do with the motorway feed, the driver’s face is somewhat clearer in a few shots but not enough to make any kind of identification. We have a bulletin out on the car, that’s really our only clue at the moment.”

“Do you think he’s already dead?” Aramis asks, his heart stuttering as he asks the dreaded question.

“Porthos doesn’t think so and his reasoning is sound, so I’m hoping he’s right.”

Aramis sighs and turns to looks out the window, the streets bustling with people despite the fact that it’s two am. “How has he been, Athos, really?”

“D’Artagnan? He left the hospital remorseful and contrite, and very embarrassed...things improved quite drastically from there. But he’s still sad and withdrawn and that’s to be expected, he needs time, Aramis, and we have to give it to him. We are very lucky however, that aside from those stupid cigarettes, which, incidentally, he binned after the accident, he hasn’t turned to alcohol or painkillers or anything else equally self-destructive. He’s too strong and too stubborn for that, and to be honest, I’d underestimated him greatly.”

“And he really thinks I no longer care?” Aramis asks tentatively, feeling physically ill over the possibility.

Athos hesitates. “I don’t think so, he’s just very distraught, Aramis, Constance was everything to him, I um, I’ve been there, it’s easy to see things in a distorted way…”

“Which means he thinks I’ve abandoned him…”

“No, he thinks he’s driven you away, there’s a huge difference, brother, he’s not blaming you, he’s blaming _himself_ ,” Athos explains carefully.

“So if he’s dead he’ll have gone to his grave thinking I no longer cared about him…”Aramis says, tears welling. 

“He’s not dead, Aramis! If that was the intention of his attackers we would have found his body in the car park, trust me, this is something else entirely.”

Aramis nods. “Wherever he is though, he’ll think I won’t be looking for him,” Aramis says, swiping at his wet cheeks. “God, I’ve fucked it all up royally, haven’t I?”

“NO! Enough, brother, you’ve nothing to feel guilty about, he pushed us all to our limits, the only reason I didn’t walk out as well is because I’ve been there, it’s not easy to understand what he is dealing with! He lost the person he’d intended to spend the rest of his life with, all his hopes and dreams came crashing down in one horrible moment,” Athos says dully, and Aramis suspects Athos is referring to himself as well. “Everything that he’d imagined the future would hold…simply vanished before it could ever happen,” he adds, swallowing hard. “I promise you’ve done nothing wrong. And Porthos knows that as well, he’s just worried and lashing out, he doesn’t mean it.”

Aramis doesn’t reply. He knows this is the wrong moment for self-pity or guilt, there will be plenty of time for that later on, but he’s finding it very hard to put it aside. When he’d left for Cyprus he could have never imagined he might not ever see d’Artagnan again, how could he have known? Athos had texted him as soon as he’d been admitted and treated and had assured him that the lad was fine and would make a full recovery. Distraught but exhausted, Aramis had booked an EasyJet flight out of Gatwick for Paphos, where he’d spent ten days in a beachfront flat that belonged to his aunt, ignoring the boy’s texts and phone calls, ignoring everyone’s actually, aside from the few messages he’d shared with his brothers regarding d’Artagnan’s health. So much had happened to them over the past year, so many changes…and losses, and Aramis simply needed to be alone. Even in his worst nightmares he could not have foreseen what would happen while he was away. 

“What has Treville got to say about France?” Aramis asks finally, breaking the awkward silence. “Any new information from the French police or their secret services about Rochefort? Can anyone actually confirm seeing him or were we led on a wild goose chase.”

“Nothing, brother, only what you already know. Treville, however, is concerned that it was the French that tipped him off to our arrival in France, by the way, he’s almost 100% sure that it wasn’t from our side, he thinks he may have had someone in the French secret services in his employ, which would also explain him being able to enter France in the first place, and possibly now, exit the country. He knew we were coming, I’m sure of it. Maybe he hadn’t expected the commandos though, so he cut his losses and ran.”

“Cut his losses and cut our Constance’s life short in the process,” Aramis says, fighting tears again. 

“Yes,” Athos replies quietly. “Listen, we’ll find him, I promise, there’s more to this, Aramis, this wasn’t a hit, whoever’s taken him wants something, either from him or from us, and that’s to our advantage for sure.”

“Wonderful, now I have images of d’Artagnan being tortured for information in my head…” Aramis says, trailing off, sickened.

“Enough, Aramis, for the love of God, brother, enough!” Athos hisses furiously. “I need to keep my head clear, I’d appreciate it if you try and do the same or stay behind!”

“Sirs, eta for the helicopter is six minutes, we’ll be there in four,” their driver, one of Porthos’ staff informs them, rolling the privacy glass down. “I’m taking you directly to the helipad.”

“Thank you,” Athos replies stiffly. He looks over at Aramis, his expression questioning.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine, I promise,” Aramis lies, and Athos visibly relaxes and nods. 

Now all he has to do is keep up the façade, Aramis thinks, he’s usually very good at that.

 

*************************************

 

D’Artagnan had spent the most of the rest of the afternoon and evening in his bedroom cell trying to find something that can be used as a weapon. He’d examined every inch of the bed, beneath it, the light fixtures in the walls, and gone through all the bathroom fixtures as well. After much effort, he’d managed to pry the towel bar off the bathroom wall and he now has it beside him, hidden under the blankets on the bed. 

At some point Ivan had brought him food again, a frozen pizza this time, with a thuggish looking older man holding a SigSauer pistol with a silencer to deter d’Artagnan from doing anything stupid. Fortunately this was before he'd wrestled with the towel bar, because for some reason Ivan had decided to do a check of the room and the toilet, as if he was looking for something.

He’d started keeping time by the sound of the traffic outside, not that it was much to begin with, but it peaked at some point and d’Artagnan estimated that to be around six thirty to seven o’clock, and as the evening wore on it trailed off completely, so he figured it was around eleven or so, since that’s the time that a residential area begins to go quiet. Sometime after that he’d fallen asleep, only to be woken by the slam of a door, the noise seeming to rattle the entire house.

The room is pitch black, apparently the only light that’s functioning is the one in the bathroom and as soon as night had fallen the meagre light that filtered in from the small holes and scratches in the whited-out windows had faded. D’Artagnan has purposely turned off the bathroom light to keep it from burning out, he doubts that Rochefort will be changing his light bulbs, even if he asks _oh so nicely_. Lying in the dark, he can hear the sounds of low voices, the house creaking and footsteps on the floor above so he imagines it must be a rather large house, and fully occupied by Rochefort and his hired guns, and someone or someones had just come in and shut the door very noisily behind them. He guesses groggily that it’s probably around two, maybe three am, simply based on how long he thinks he’s slept; not much, actually, but since this had become his new normal, managing to sleep only a few hours each night, he’s become accustomed to this new internal clock and he gauges the time by how his body feels.

He wonders what Athos and Porthos are doing; have they gone mental with worry or maybe they haven’t noticed that he’s gone yet? He’d mouthed off to Rochefort about them finding him but will they actually be able to? Has anyone told Aramis? Would he return or has he had enough of him? Athos and Porthos had assured him that Aramis’ somewhat dramatic exit at the playground was simply due to the fact that he too was grieving and was anxious over d’Artagnan’s well-being. Their brother just needed some time alone to process, Athos had explained gently but d’Artagnan is afraid he might have pushed him away for good. The thought makes his heart ache; even though they’d all separated as a team, nothing had changed between them, they were still family, still the most important people in each other’s lives and if he’s fucked it all up with Aramis he’ll devastated. 

And _oh fuck_ , his parents! In his old life he'd never had to worry about them looking for him or worrying, he’d lived far from them and they thought he travelled frequently for his fake programming job, but now they are used to seeing him regularly and hearing from him every day, especially since…

Especially since Constance had died, he thinks dully.

He refuses to wallow though, not here, not now. There will be plenty of time for that later; if he survives this, whatever it is, he will have a lifetime to mourn the loss of his Constance, his angel in heaven now, he thinks, hoping fervently that all that catechism that had been forced down his throat was actually true. For the moment he has one focus only; kill that motherfucking piece of shit who’d stolen her away from him or die trying. D’Artagnan knows for a fact that if he can get close enough for even 5 seconds he can break his neck or maybe bash his head in with the towel bar. He’s pretty sure that Ivan or someone else is in his employ would kill him after, but he doesn’t care, as long as he takes Rochefort to hell with him, d’Artagnan simply doesn’t care.

He slides his hand down the neck of his jumper and pulls out the chain hanging around his neck, holding Constance’s engagement ring gently in his hand. It had been returned to him a blackened, melted, mangled mess, but of course the diamond had survived, that’s why they say diamonds are forever, he thinks ruefully, and his mother had been appalled that he’d hung it from a string in that horrible state around his neck. She’d taken it from him forcibly and had it reset exactly as it had been, incorporating as much of the original that could be salvaged, and had it put on a sturdy white gold chain and returned it to him. She’d told him that he should remember her as he’d last seen her; shining as beautifully as the perfect diamond he’d chosen for her, and she’d put the chain around his neck herself. After, she’d held him for a long time while he cried.

He’d wondered for days and then weeks if he’d ever have a purpose again, if he’d ever be able to truly function as he had before, working, going about the motions of his every day existence, spending time with his family and with his brothers, and if he could ever truly feel alive again. And then yesterday Rochefort kidnapped him and it all became clear; he did have a purpose… _revenge_ …and he would get it no matter what it took. D’Artagnan acknowledges that he hasn’t felt this alive since Team 3 split for good and his confidence is at its peak; there is no way he’ll fail, this is the most important mission of his life and he must succeed, no matter what.

The door opens suddenly, and d’Artagnan hardly has the chance to react when the room is flooded with armed men, one holding a large emergency torch that lights up the darkened room, and Rochefort, wearing a rain-damp jacket comes over to the bed and crosses his arms over his chest.

“It seems as if you’ve been a very naughty boy, little Musketeer. Now hand it over and I won’t allow these gentlemen to do you any bodily harm.”

 _Cameras_ , he realizes dully, and he sits up carefully, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and pulls the towel bar from under the blankets. This might be his only chance he thinks and he decides he’s in for all. 

He lunges for Rochefort, towel bar raised high and Rochefort, completely shocked, barely has a chance to move but he manages to twist himself slightly so that the bar comes down on his shoulder and not his head. He drops to the floor with a loud cry of pain but before d’Artagnan can bring it down again he’s once again stunned by a taser and he falls back onto the bed, paralysed.

“Ivan, get a syringe, now, I’m losing my patience with this brainless, tragic imbecile,” d’Artagnan hears Rochefort say through a haze of confusion and a few moments later someone sticks a needle in his neck.

“I’m beginning to think you’re more trouble that you’re worth,” Rochefort snarls as someone pushes him fully back onto the bed and rolls him until he’s leaning against the wall, probably so he doesn’t fall off now that he’s been drugged.

“I warned you,” d’Artagnan says, his words slurring. “I will kill you,” he adds defiantly.

Rochefort barks out a laugh. “Maybe, but not tonight, little Musketeer,” he replies and the room empties, the door is secured and d’Aratgnan falls into a deep, drug-induced sleep with tears of frustration running down his face.

 

To be continued.......

 

Coming soon; we find out what Rochefort is up to and it isn't always _all_ about d'Artagnan....


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Critique is very welcome, as welcome as any other kind of review, comments are the currency in which fanfiction writers are rewarded so feel free to say what you like or don't like, thank you:)

Athos, Aramis and Porthos are standing in an empty field about thirty meters from the vehicle that had been used to kidnap d’Artagnan and they are all fighting the temptation to open the doors and begin to search for clues. They know they can’t though, a forensics team is on its way from London to Dover, via helicopter, and a second chopper is transporting Porthos’ two top tactical units, headed by Ryder and Trip.

It’s quarter past eight and they’ve all be awake more than twenty four hours, aside from the few winks they’ve all managed to steal at some point or another; in the helicopter, the rental, the ten minutes it took the others to unpack the car at the hotel and so forth. Whatever is going on has quickly escalated from a kidnapping to a threat to entire area, as the car contains what appears to be an explosive device that Porthos has assured them is not remotely controlled, but rudimentary fuse-lit bomb, probably intended for the destruction of the car, but either they were scared off before they could detonate it or for some reason hadn’t considered it necessary to draw undue attention. Either way, the three men have no choice but to wait for support to arrive before they can get anything significant from the car.

Athos hasn’t been this wired in a while. When they’d lost Constance, he’d been numb and then focused on keeping d’Artagnan from following her, but now, he’s giving an BAFTA-worthy performance while inside his emotions are truly all over the place, especially now with the bad blood between Aramis and Porthos. The local police have begun a door to door in the area around where the car had been found, but Athos is sure they won’t find anything, not this close to where the car had been dumped. Athos has also requested a list of all empty and abandoned buildings within a 50 mile radius of the port of Dover, including residences that are unoccupied at the moment. The Home Office has had the local councils working on it since half-seven am, about forty minutes from the approximate time that the car and the bomb had been discovered by a local resident and reported to the police, and then of course to Sylvie and Athos.

The tactical units and forensics are being run by Porthos, but Treville has given command of the entire operation to Athos since it falls under Agency jurisdiction. It’s a massive operation and despite his personal involvement Athos knows he is capable of rising above that; actually, his brain knows that, he just hopes his heart is on board as well. 

Porthos has all of his men and hardware just minutes away and he’s been fielding calls on two mobiles for the past few hours, calm and composed, but the usually-dependable Aramis though is not nearly as steady. After a night of barbed digs from Porthos about his unplanned sabbatical, Aramis seems rattled and he’s become a bit too focused on the kidnapping victim and less on the whole picture and if it continues, Athos will be forced to remove him from active duty. Porthos has also been sternly warned to _cease and desist_ or he’s going to report him to Sylvie. The minute explosives had become a factor, their mission had become focused on the safety of the local areas and preventing any innocent loss of life and not simply on retrieving their missing brother. If Aramis can’t get his head in the game and Porthos continues to behave childishly he’s sending them both back to London.

Athos gets a major surprise when the cavalry arrives headed by Sylvie herself. She is a force to be reckoned with for sure and Athos is very grateful for her presence. She quickly takes charge of her people and within a half hour she has the bomb removed safely and the forensic team at work on the car. She instructs the three of them to follow her and her tactical units to the local police station for a briefing. Athos has never been so glad to share responsibility with anyone in his entire life. The fact that it’s Sylvie makes the notion all the more…appealing.

The local police have arranged a large meeting room for them to use as their war room, so to speak. There, Athos and Sylvie brief the tactical units on the list of possible target buildings while local police have tripled their mobile patrols, looking for anything suspicious. Whatever is happening could be anything from an attempt to extort a large ransom to a major terrorist offensive, without any demands or any information gleaned from chatter, they simply don’t know. Athos is also aware it could also simply be an Agency-related vendetta, but that is actually the worst case scenario for d’Artagnan and Athos simply doesn’t want to go there at the moment.

“We’ve got a clear photo of the man driving the Fiat,” Sylvie says and she begins to hand out copies.

Porthos looks at the photo but his expression doesn’t show recognition. Aramis though, has a completely different reaction.

“Athos…” he begins, clearly shocked, as is Athos himself.

Athos meets Aramis’ gaze and nods. “This is Nikolai Orlov, Russian national, he works for Yevgeny Grigorievich,” Athos informs everyone, truly stunned. It’s been years and he can’t believe that Yev would go to so much trouble. “This isn’t about d’Artagnan, he’s just the bait, this is about me and Aramis,” Athos says and all eyes turn to the two of them, clearly surprised.

“Athos and I apprehended Yev Grigorievich about six years ago, money laundering, bank fraud, and the like. He was extradited back to Russia where he spent three years in prison. He later managed to get in the good graces of the government, gave half of his bank to a handful of ministers at which point he was released and back in charge of his empire only slightly less wealthy than he had been before,” Aramis explains. “This was before Team 3, it was a training run really, along with Wilton and Spears, but Athos and I picked him up. I don’t know how he could know anything about d’Artagnan…”

Porthos grunts. “Unless that bastard Rochefort is involved. What if he _is_ selling secrets, lured us to France on Yev’s behalf and then was surprised by the commandos. Maybe grabbing d’Artagnan was plan B.”

“Maybe, Yev wouldn’t care about the bounty on Rochefort, a million pounds is nothing to him,” Athos muses, “but getting revenge of me and Aramis might have been tempting. Rochefort had access to all sorts of information while working for Louis, and something like this isn’t even classified, it was all over the media, a big coup and a nice PR opportunity for joint cooperation between the UK and Russia.”

“And with d’Artagnan…vulnerable,” Aramis says, stumbling over the word, “he was an easy target, they chose him because he was clearly unwell, both physically and psychologically. I saw the video, he was distracted, in the store and then in the car park, they took advantage of his mental state and his injuries.”

Athos nods slowly in agreement. Aramis had watched the feed on a loop on Athos’ tablet multiple times during the night, mostly to punish himself, Athos acknowledges, but he’s made an excellent observation on d’Artagnan’s condition and state of mind. If he was being followed, maybe for days for all they know, his overall demeanour made his kidnapper’s job a lot easier by leaving himself vulnerable and exposed.

“This is a major breakthrough, gents, at least now we know who and probably why. I’ll get the file asap and check with immigration, see if any of his known associates or family members have entered the UK recently,” Sylvie tells them, phone in hand, ready to get on it.

“He has a son, Ivan and a daughter, Katerina I think, see if either of them is presently in the country. He’s been barred from entry but I doubt his children are, they were teenagers at the time of his arrest, and he’d been divorced from their mother,” Aramis informs her.

“This just got a lot easier and a helluva lot more complicated,” Porthos says to Athos worriedly when the meeting is done. “Worst part of this is that there’s been no contact yet, why?”

Aramis goes rigid. “Do you think they’ve killed him to get back at us, will taunt us at some point with his body? Or they could be torturing him for information…you know he won’t break, Athos, he’ll suffer before…”

“Aramis, I’m one minute away from forcibly sending you back to London, preferably after forcing a handful of Xanax down your throat! Now stop speculating and get your head in the game, you are _not_ helping!” Athos hisses, careful not to let anyone else hear him reprimand his friend.

Porthos looks a bit too smug and Athos turns on him next. “And you! I thought you were more professional than this, Porthos, he’s already hanging by a thread, back off, brother, I’ve had all I’m going to take from the both of you! We’re already one down,” he says pointedly, reminding them of the painful hole that Constance has left behind, “if you two don’t get serious we may easily make a mistake that can cost us the boy as well.”

Both Porthos and Aramis look stunned and embarrassed and Athos feels fully vindicated. Their feud and their emotions need to be put aside or d’Artagnan could be lost to them for good.

“I’m sorry, brother,” Aramis says tiredly, and he runs both hands through his uncombed hair, a tell that he’s worried and frustrated, but he seems genuinely contrite.

“Yeah, me too,” Porthos says, but he’s looking at Aramis when he says it, lifting a massive weight off of Athos’ shoulders.

“Good, now let’s get something to eat while we wait for an immigration update from Sylvie and then we’ll begin to check the buildings on the lists. Agreed?”

Both men agree with a nod and Athos suddenly feels hopeful again. The three of them, together, on the same page, are a force to be reckoned with. Divided, they are nothing but three well trained soldiers, with no one to have their backs; everything they’ve ever achieved, every successful mission has been a collaborative effort. At the moment, this is probably the most important mission of their lives; they’ve all suffered, lost so much, the worst thing that could happen to them is to lose another member of their family; they have to stay focused and united, or else all is lost.

“All for one?” Athos says with a pang, echoing d’Artagnan and his cheesy love of the Musketeer motto.

“And one for all,” his brothers reply and Athos knows they’re good, they can _do this_ , together they can do anything.

 

********************************************

 

“Open your eyes, luv.”

“hmnnnn…”

“Come on sleepy head, open those lovely brown eyes for me…”

“go away, mum…” he grumbles and tries to turn over but there are arms around him and his head is resting on someone's...thigh…?

“Mama?” he questions, breathless. The room is mostly dark, but daylight is trying desperately to peek in through the scratches in the white paint covering the window panes, and at once he remembers he’s not at home and there’s no way that the woman beside him is his mother…

“No, luv, it’s me,” a soft and frighteningly familiar voice says and d’Artagnan gasps, and violently throws himself off the bed, rolling painfully until he comes to stop on his bruised arse, his elbows keeping him from falling on his back and hitting his head.

“Oh no,no,no,no,no...this is some kind of a sick joke! LEAVE! Get the fuck out whoever you are…and leave me be!” he cries harshly, panting, and his heart is slamming so hard in his chest he feels lightheaded. He shuts his eyes and wills the stranger to disappear.

“Calm yourself, luv, you’re going to have a panic attack,” the woman says sternly from where she’s come to kneel beside him and her voice is so achingly familiar he wants to scream. Woodenly, he sits up and pulls away from her and he leans forward, knees pulled up to his chest and covers his face with his hands. “Please, I don’t know who you are but this is cruel, I’m begging you…just go away,” he whispers, wrecked. Even for Rochefort this is unthinkably malicious…or maybe not.

“I knew you’d be shocked, I’m so sorry, I was pretty stunned myself when Rochefort shoved me in the door this morning,” she tells him, and her hand comes to rest on his shoulder. 

D’Artagnan cringes away from her touch and jumps to his feet, stumbling backwards until he falls back against the closed bathroom door. “Who are you?” he asks hoarsely, blinking rapidly to clear his muddled brain. He’d been tased and drugged, this is probably all a hallucination or a waking nightmare; if he closes his eyes and goes back to sleep she will disappear, he decides, so he falls to his knees, closes his eyes and covers his head with his hands, willing sleep to take him again.

“Enough, d’Artagnan, it’s me, Constance, I swear to you, I’m not dead, although why, not I have no idea,” the woman says matter-of-factly, grabbing his arms firmly and pulling them away from his head and his face. “Look at me, you idiot and you’ll see it’s really me!”

“No, this is a twisted dream…I’m still sleeping,” he mutters to himself stubbornly. 

“Oi, if Aramis were here he’d give you a mighty slap until you snapped out of that, wouldn’t he?” she says, sounding frustrated and so fucking bizarrely like Constance.

D’Artagnan freezes. “How do you know who Aramis is?” he asks suspiciously, still refusing to look at her. It’s too painful to see that face that looks like hers…but can’t be hers.

“If you’ll just look at me you foolish boy you’ll see why I know who Aramis is! And Porthos and Athos and Ellie and…”

“Stop!” he roars and to his horror he begins to weep. This is why Rochefort had kidnapped him instead of simply killing him; to torture him and get his revenge by driving him mad. “I beg you, please just stop and leave me alone,” he whispers brokenly, his voice hitching and his heart shattering all over again, as if his life has rewound two months and he’s facing her loss all over again. 

“Oh God, I’m so fucking sorry,” she tells him, her voice cracking. “I know you’ve been through hell my love, but you have to believe me, it was all a cruel trick, Rochefort wanted you all to think me dead and from the look of you he’d convinced you alright,” she says, sniffling. “What’s happened to you?” she asks on a sob, “that gash, your hair and the beard, and you’re so thin, I almost didn’t recognise you when that bastard pushed me in here and said he had a ‘gift’ for me,” she adds miserably.

That gets d’Artagnan’s attention. “A gift?” he whispers, shocked. “He told me that too,” he says, utterly confused.

“I’m guessing you are my gift,” she whispers and wraps her arms around him, holding on to him tightly and quite fearlessly, he thinks oddly, he could easily break her neck if he wanted. Trembling, he pulls back from her and opens his eyes, trying to get a better look at her.

Pale, creamy skin, reddish brown curls, and huge blue eyes now staring straight at him, damp with tears.

“Constance?” he asks in wonder, his heart stuttering. 

“Yes, luv, it me,” she replies, searching his gaze, and he sees her eyes widen when she realises that he believes her. Falling forward into his embrace, she begins to cry in earnest, and he gathers her close, holding her against his chest, weeping right along with her. 

_It’s her_ , it really is _her_ , he knows the feel of her, the smell of her, the tickle of her silky hair on his neck, her touch on his face, it’s Constance, alive and real and in his arms.

“But how?” he says, pulling her gently back to see her face. “Your ring, there were bits of your clothes…DNA,” he adds, his voice breaking as he says it.

“We were grabbed by a bunch of Russian thugs, they shot that poor French commando that was with me, and dumped him in the barracks. They took my jacket, my Kevlar and shoes and cut a few inches of my hair off,” she explains with a grimace, “grabbed my ring, and then gave me this,” she says, pulling up her sleeve so that he can see a gash on her arm, badly stitched, but healed. “So there was blood and hair and clothes and my gorgeous engagement ring,” she adds mournfully. 

For the first time since that horrible night in his flat when Athos, Aramis and Treville had shown up at his door, d’Artagnan smiles, a proper grin, teeth and all. “I can’t do anything about everything else they did, but I can give you back this,” he says and he pulls the chain out from under his jumper.

Constance gasps, one hand covering her mouth in shock. “How?”

“The French investigators returned it to Athos and he gave it to me, quite mangled, mind you, but Mum fixed it, she was angry that I was wearing it around my neck like that,” he says, fresh tears welling up and spilling over as he remembers the moment that Athos had put it in his hand, the older man’s eyes red and bloodshot as he’d done so. 

“I’m so sorry, my love,” she says sorrowfully. “I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through. I’ve spent the past two months sick over it, worried about all of you and my family…it’s been a fucking nightmare,” she says anxiously.

“Have they hurt you?” he demands, getting to his feet and pulling her up with him. “If he’s laid one finger on you I’ll rip his heart out,” d’Artagnan vows furiously. 

“No, I swear, nothing, just two months of being moved around from place to place and boredom. No one has touched me and aside from the cut on my arm, I’m not hurt, I promise."

D’Aratgnan looks her over and frowns. “Has the bastard been starving you? You’ve lost so much weight,” he says, distraught.

“Three squares a day, clean clothes and sheets, toiletries and even a few paperbacks, it’s been the strangest kidnapping ever. And he doesn’t let anyone but the young bloke, Ivan, come near me if he’s not present, since the rest are pretty much street thugs.”

“I’ll remember to thank him for keeping you safe from his hired scum when I’m killing him,” d’Artagnan says sarcastically and he takes her hand and tugs her the few feet to the bed. “Come on up, I want to hold you,” he tells her and they climb up on to the bed together, d’Artagnan with his back against the wall and Constance sitting between his spread legs, leaning back against his chest.

“I have so many questions, I don’t know where to start? Do you have any idea what he’s planning?” d’Artagnan questions, his face buried in her hair and his arms tight around her.

“No idea, but the Russians are constantly rattling on about moving to the next job since this one is nearly done. They’re mostly careful around me, I’m guessing that Rochefort has warned them that I speak multiple languages. He’d know, of course, he did steal our personnel files after all,” Constance reminds him. “What about you? To be honest you look awful, mate, and what happened to your hair?” she grumbles.

“I’ve uh…I’ve had a hard time you know, I thought you were…gone…and I didn’t take it very well,” he tells her carefully, swallowing the lump in his throat, not wanting to give away the details of the hell he’d put himself and everyone else through. 

“How did you get that nasty cut on your head? It looks recent and kind of red, maybe a bit inflamed,” she observes worriedly. “I’ll ask Ivan to bring something to clean it up,” she adds and it irks him to no end that she mentions asking that wanker _Ivan_ for anything. “Now tell me, how did it happen? And don’t lie,” she warns.

D’Artagnan laughs softly and presses a kiss to the side of her face. “I wrecked my bike,” he admits, bracing himself for her censure.

“And you weren’t wearing a helmet I assume,” she retorts angrily. “I can just imagine what the others said... and your parents.”

“My parents don’t know and Porthos and Athos have been pretty cool about it because ever since it happened, I’ve been… _better behaved_ , to use Athos’ words,” he says, embarrassed.

Constance pulls forward a bit to turn and face him. “And Aramis?” she asks, clearly frightened. “He’s alright, isn’t he? Ivan said no one else was hurt…”

“He’s fine, luv, I promise, everyone is. Aramis is…away. And I’m not sure if he’s coming back into my life,” he says sadly. “I was…difficult, and he got fed up.”

Constance lets out a relieved breath. “I’m sure he’s already forgiven you for whatever he was annoyed about, you know Aramis, he can’t stay mad at anyone. So you cut your hair because of the stitches?”

“No, I’d done than before. You loved it long…and you were gone,” he says slowly, “and I was angry and bitter and I cut it all off to spite you for leaving me,” he admits, one tear escaping. “It was stupid and childish…and of course I knew it wasn’t your fault, but I thought I would die from the pain, I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Before she can reply, d’Artagnan hears the bar go up and the lock being opened. He pushes Constance aside gently and gets to his feet, instinctively holding her firmly by one arm behind him on the bed.

Ivan enters carrying a tray with food, Rochefort following behind him.

“I told you I had a gift for you, little Musketeer, now I expect one in return,” he says pleasantly.

“If you include _not killing_ you as a gift, sorry, that’s not on the table right now,” d'Artagnan replies in an equally pleasant tone, his left hand firmly around Constance’s wrist. He knows she’ll have a go at him for that later, but right now he doesn’t care.

“Our baby Musketeer has teeth,” Rochefort tells Ivan and the other man smiles at Rochefort somewhat indulgently and D’Artagnan finds it very creepy. “You will behave, boy, or I’ll take your toy away from you, understood?” he warns and d’Artagnan feels his heart freeze. For Constance’s sake, he’ll need to keep his mouth shut. “You left a massive bruise on my shoulder with that stunt last night, I should have given you the same back! But I didn’t, and I expect nothing like that will happen again?” he asks, one brow raised.

D’Artagnan nods. “Listen, let’s see if we can come to some sort of agreement. I will do anything you ask, literally _anything_ , if you let Constance go free,” he proposes. He hears a sharp intake of breath from Constance, but he squeezes her wrist, willing her to stay quiet for the moment. 

“If you were anyone else I might have actually considered it, but you’re notoriously impulsive and I don’t trust you to keep your word,” Rochefort tells him. “No, she stays, she’s my guarantee that you will do as you’re told. Now eat your breakfast like good kiddies; do anything to provoke me and the lovely Constance will disappear for good, understood?”

“Understood,” he replies woodenly, knowing that Rochefort now has him firmly by the balls and there is nothing he can do about it. “Look, can we at least stay together? There’s no harm in it, we’re pretty much helpless locked in here and you with your army of Russians?”

“I’ll consider it, but it will be added to your debt to me,” he warns. “Ivan, leave the tray, we have business to attend to.”

Ivan puts the tray on the bed since there’s no table and the two of them leave them alone.

“What the _FUCK_ was that? Negotiating for my release like I’m some damsel in distress?” Constance says furiously. 

“Well, maybe he would have let you go…and you could have gone for help…” d’Artagnan tries, but Constance is having none of it.

“Under any other circumstances you’d be in serious trouble, you twat, but now…” she says, all the fight draining away, “but it’s been a horrible two months and I’m fucking tired,” she says, pouring them tea from the thermos. There’s a pile of buttered toast and various packaged biscuits and as Constance had noted earlier this truly is a bizarre kidnapping.

D’Artagnan sits on the floor and takes the tea from Constance. “So this is how it goes? A tray three times a day, Ivan the creepy-but-well-dressed Russian thug following Rochefort around like an undersized watchdog, total isolation and just sitting around, waiting for something to happen?”

“That’s about it, mate, but there’s also a woman, Yianna, who cleans, so add that to the list of strange,” Constance says, biting into a piece of toast. “She’s deaf, so we haven’t been able to communicate aside from a few hand gestures and shy smiles. When I got my period though she was very sympathetic, made sure I had what I needed and all that.”

“Sisterhood breaking down language barriers,” d’Artagnan muses ironically. “There’s cameras in here, by the way, I found out last night the hard way,” he tells her seriously, rubbing unconsciously at his neck.

“Yes, I know, in mine too, only not in the toilet I think, I checked, shouldn’t be in yours either.”

“I um, I yanked the towel bar off the wall and got nicked for it, so maybe there are?”

Constance shakes her head. “They probably saw you carrying it out of the toilet, I’ll check for you, I know exactly what I’m looking for.”

D’Artagnan huffs out a laugh. “I seriously hope there aren’t, the idea of Ivan watching me take a crap is going to make me …constipated,” he says with a grimace.

Constance giggles and hands him some toast. “He is an odd one, to be sure, I think Rochefort had a hard-on for him, by the way, he gives him these looks that are...strange,” she tells him suggestively.

“Ok that kind of…gross, but only because it’s Rochefort,” d’Artagnan says with a grimace.

“Yes, but Ivan is very pretty, I can see the attraction,” Constance teases. “Not as pretty as you, of course, and no one has an arse like yours, that’s for sure…”

D’Artagnan groans. “Enough! Eat your breakfast and check the bathroom, it’s been a very long two months my darling girl,” he whispers, pulling her down to sit on his lap.

“Don’t, they can see us,” she warns. “I would love nothing more than to pull your jeans off and fuck you silly right now, trust me, but I refuse to provide Rochefort’s horny thugs with wank material.”

“There is certainly no doubt that you truly are my Constance,” he says with a breathy sigh, “only you talk about sex like one of the lads,” he tells her teasingly. 

“Yes well, I’ve served in the army and then spent the next five years mostly surrounded by men, at some point I think I actually became one of the lads. I miss the others, and I’m worried sick that they’ll be targeted as well.”

D’Artagnan shakes his head. “Even if they are targeted they’ll be fine because they’ll know to be vigilant. Athos or Porthos would have been looking for me within a few hours of my disappearance, they’ve been…hovering,” he admits with a grimace.

Constance lays her head against his chest and curls up into his lap. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that, if it’s any consolation I was hurting right along with you, worrying about you, missing you…”

“No consolation, Constance, I never want you to be unhappy or in pain, ever. Look, let’s try to put that aside for now; we have no idea what’s coming and for the time being I just want to focus on this moment, you and me, alive and together, just do this for me alright?”

Constance sighs. “Yes, of course, you’re right,” she replies, one hand stroking his scruffy beard. 

“Now I think you’d better check that bathroom, or else Ivan and Rochefort are going to get a free show,” he breathes, hard as fuck.

Constance gets up and laughs, low and throaty and seductive and d’Artagnan thinks it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. She does a thorough check of the bathroom and gives it the all clear but despite d’Artagnan’s raging hard on he doubts that either of them will enjoy a quick fuck while men with Israeli-made sub-machine guns hover outside the door. Instead, the fall into the bed together and they lay in each other’s arms, side by side, taking comfort from each other’s presence until they accidentally fall asleep…only to be rudely awaken at some point by that wanker Ivan.

No Rochefort this time and a woman is carrying the tray, but it only has one plate on it. D’Artagnan knows at once what this means.

“You can’t take her away,” d’Artagnan says, jumping off the bed, panicked. “Rochefort said…”

Ivan cuts him off with a click of the safety on his weapon and d’Artagnan freezes and forces a sleepy Constance to remain behind him.

“It’s alright, luv,” she assures d’Artagnan with a shaky smile. “Ivan won’t hurt me, will you, mate?”

The young Russian shakes his head. “You, no, him? Maybe,” he says with a twisted smile. “Come, Yianna will bring your lunch,” he tells Constance pleasantly and she squeezes d’Artagnan’s hand reassuringly. 

“If you hurt her, I’ll rip your balls off with my bare hands and feed them to you,” d’Artagnan says slowly and carefully, just in case the Russian misunderstands.

“I won’t hurt her, and I won’t let anyone else do so either,” the little wanker says seriously in lightly accented English, and for some reason, d’Artagnan actually believes him. “Now eat and shut up, you talk like some stupid American movie hero, it’s ridiculous, you know,” Ivan informs him smugly. 

Yianna, unable to understand what’s being said, looks frightened by their exchange, and she puts the tray on the bed and takes the one from the floor and hurries out the room. Ivan takes Constance by the arm and she gives d’Artagnan a reassuring smile as she follows him out the door.

The absurdity of the situation will surely drive him mad, d’Artagnan thinks dully, as he sinks down onto the bed and picks at his lunch, a club sandwich with chips and a Coke. After he eats, he decides to shower. There’s a clean towel and liquid hand soap, a woman’s spray deodorant, a tube of toothpaste and a comb, and he makes do. He has to put his worn boxers back on and his dusty clothes but at least he smells clean he thinks.

Brothers, he thinks frustrated, what the fuck is taking you so long?

To be continued....


	6. Chapter 6

Operation Amber Alert, as Sylvie had named it, has blanketed the entire town of Dover and the incorporated parishes surrounding the town.

When Athos had first heard Sylvie call it that he’d been struck dumb; it was obvious that it was a riff on his nickname for d’Artagnan, _child_ , and it took him a full minute to accept that it hadn’t been done maliciously. Seeing his friend stiffen and pale, Aramis had quickly assured him that it was probably chosen to throw off any foreign hackers or anyone who accidentally stumbled onto their operation, since it connoted the search for a missing child and not an adult.* Athos still found it unsettling and Sylvie had apologised profusely when she’d realised how badly he’d been affected. Aramis fully agreed that it was in poor taste since it seemed to almost mock the alert program for missing children _and_ it hit Athos in his weak spot, but he did admit it would make anyone unauthorised think they were looking for a child and not an adult.

Both the main port and the marina are temporarily closed despite vehement protests from the Ministry in London but Treville has enough pull to make sure everything stays shut. They still have no idea if d’Aragnan is being held in or around the town but a super-yacht in the marina, flying a Maltese flag, had three Russian nationals with valid visas on board; Ivan Grigorievich, Nikolai Orlov and Yianna Dubrova. An arrest warrant has been issued for Nikolai but not for Ivan or Yianna, and so far no one has seen any of them.

The staff and crew on board the yacht are all Maltese and have been very cooperative. The Captain had been interviewed by Sylvie herself and he’d informed her that they’d set sail from Malta two weeks previous, made numerous stops for day trips and continued on to Dover. None of the staff or crew had seen any weapons or d'Artagnan but all of them recognised Rochefort as a Mr. Robert Stevens, a close friend of Mr. Grigorievich, and that he'd been picked up in Calais. He also held a valid passport, Australian, and had no problem getting through immigration which makes Sylvie throw a massive tantrum and Aramis literally cringes as she yells at some poor sod on the phone about it. Both Rochefort aka Robert Stevens and Nikolai Orlov are now being hunted, door to door. 

“So we are now assuming that Rochefort probably lured Team 3 to France on Grigorievich’s orders, to either kidnap or kill Aramis and Athos. When that wasn’t possible, they came via Calais and kidnapped d’Artagnan to lure you two in. Everything makes sense and is falling into place aside from the fact that they haven’t yet made contact,” Sylvie tells them, in their temporary headquarters at the main Dover police station.

“And Nikolai was sloppy,” Athos notes curiously, “I’m thinking he may not have trusted Rochefort or his men and decided to grab d’Artagnan himself?”

“Rochefort is a loose cannon, Yev may not trust him beyond getting the necessary information from him and whatnot, that’s all I can think of,” Porthos adds.

“What have we got on the door to door?” Aramis asks Sylvie.

“Nothing yet, and I’m waiting for an update on some warehouses at the port. You lot?”

Aramis lets out a frustrated breath. “Same, Porthos and I went along with Ryder, Athos with Trip, we must have checked almost every building and house on the list. This might be a wild goose chase, they may be hundreds of miles away by now.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Athos says. “I’m almost positive they’re here in town. Ivan sailed right into the marina without a care in the world, and he plans to sail back out that way. We might be able to get permission for a search of the vessel but if Nikolai and Rochefort aren’t on it we can’t do anything to Ivan or the girl, not without proof that they might be involved. His father is a very powerful man in Russia, I have a feeling not even Whitehall will be able to issue an order to detain him on grounds of national security without causing a flap with the Russian government.”

“Athos is right; without evidence Ivan is bulletproof. We need to find Rochefort, Nikolai or d’Artagnan, Ivan is just some spoiled rich kid playing at espionage, I doubt he’s the key to anything,” Sylvie muses. “Look it’s nearly seven, let’s break for dinner and meet back here at nine, alright?”

Athos nods. “Would you like to join us?” he asks her politely and Aramis covers his mouth with his hand discreetly to hide his smirk. Yes, he’d been right about that one and he think that Athos and Sylvie would make a good…team? He wouldn’t actually say couple because they are both so fiercely independent and have been single for years – Porthos loves to gossip – but they are pretty much a perfect match.

“Sorry, gents, too much to do,” she answered apologetically but Aramis is sure from her expression that she truly regrets not being able to spend some time off duty with Athos, even if it is with him and Porthos in tow.

The three of them find an open café a few streets down, order without really thinking about it and they remain awkwardly quiet while they wait for their food. Aramis is trying very hard to remain neutral and focused, as he’d promised Athos, but he’s tired and jet-lagged and still upset with Porthos and his pointed digs about abandoning d’Artagnan. He’d gotten a half-hearted apology earlier, but when this is all done, they need to have it out or else it will fester, and Aramis is not willing to lose Porthos, under any circumstances and for any reason.

Their food is served and they eat in silence, and it’s in no way companionable, Aramis notes; he keeps getting looks from Athos, as does Porthos, who has decided to ignore both of them and focus on his food. When they are finished and Athos calls for the bill, his phone chirps. Athos opens the message and goes rigid.

“Looks like we have contact gents,” he says evenly, tossing three twenty pound notes on the table. 

“On your work phone?” Porthos asks at once.

“Well, what does it say?” Aramis demands.

“Yes, my government phone so it’s not actually proof of life,” he tells Porthos, and then he turns to Aramis. “What I expected, they will trade d’Artagnan for the two of us, tomorrow at 2 pm, place to be decided. They want to know if we’re willing.”

“Athos, tell them no…it’s out of the question; they’ll just kill all three of you!” Porthos growls. “We need a plan, call Sylvie, tell her we’re on our way…”

Aramis baulks. “Regardless of how this will actually happen, you must say yes, Athos,” Aramis insists. “Then we’ll see what to do about…”

“We don’t negotiate with kidnappers and terrorists, Rochefort knows that!” Porthos hisses, “they’ll assume it’s a trap if Athos simply says yes!”

“Both of you shut up! We’re in a public place, what’s wrong with the two of you? Have you forgotten everything we do and how we do it?” Athos asks angrily in a hushed whisper. “Now let’s go meet with Sylvie and decide how to proceed.”

“This really has nothing to do with d’Artagnan, I’m willing to trade myself for him,” Aramis tells Athos out in the car park. “He’s been through enough and anything else could get more people killed.”

Porthos grabs him by the jacket and pushes him up against their rental. “Have you gone mad? Simply ‘and yourself over to be killed? What the fuck is wrong with you?” the big man roars furiously. “We don’t do suicide missions, mate, and I’m not gonna to let you do this!”

Aramis seethes. “Well since you’re not my boss or my mother you can fuck off, _brother_ , because it’s my choice! Why should the boy suffer for me?”

“And for me,” Athos reminds Aramis quietly, “but handing ourselves over could be a trap that could get d’Artagnan killed regardless. I’m not answering until we speak with Sylvie. And even if we do agree to a trade it will be with a plan, brother, we’re not going to simply let Grigorievich take us; besides the fact that I do not have a death wish at the present time, it will kill d’Artagnan for sure, the last blow so to speak, we might as well all drink the poisoned Kool-aid if that’s what you think we should do.”

Aramis knows of course that Athos is right. Neither does he have a particular reason to be courting death, not now that the boy is doing so much better, and Reina has come into his life...and he’s got Athos and Porthos, and Ellie and Marie, more than he’d ever hoped to have to live for if he’s honest with himself. But there’s a part of him that is tired and weary and grieving and it’s clouding his judgement. D’Artagnan though has become fragile since Constance’s death and Aramis won’t be responsible for his complete and total devastation.

“Alright, let’s see what Sylvie suggests. But you should demand proof of life,” Aramis says shakily. He’s still afraid that d’Artagnan could already be dead, or even close to it. That’s what happens when you have a guilty conscience, he thinks, frustrated.

Athos looks tremendously relieved. “Of course, but we won’t give any reply until we all sit down and discuss this rationally, with Sylvie and Treville and of course Ryder since he's the tactical expert. We also need to give my phone to your techs, Porthos, on the slightest chance that we can get anything from the number, all agreed?”

Both he and Porthos nod and Athos unlocks the car. “We won’t just leave him to die, brother, I swear, when have we ever done anything like that?” Athos assures Aramis, who is still feeling uncertain and Athos clearly knows his every expression, his every tell…how could he not after so long?

“Yes, yes, of course we won’t,” Aramis replies, feeling a tiny bit of comfort from Athos’ words. 

Porthos grunts in agreement. “We’re not losing ‘im, we lost her, we’re not losing ‘im, no way,” he states, more to himself Aramis notes, and despite all his anger and bluster Porthos is clearly just as rattled as he is. 

“Now that we’re all on the same page, can we please get in the car? I foresee a long night ahead of us,” Athos warns.

They drive to police headquarters silently, each of them lost in their own thoughts of how this can happen without anyone getting killed and Aramis begins to feel a little bit more hopeful. They have the entire Counter-terrorism unit at their disposal, ports and airports are locked down, the three of them are working together, everything will work out…won’t it?

 

*******************************************

 

D’Artagnan hasn’t seen Constance since she was taken away at lunch and aside from another tray of food delivered by a silent Ivan and a terrified Yianna, he hasn’t seen anyone else all day either. That changes though with a visit from Rochefort after the room has gone dark and d’Artagnan steels himself to be on his best behaviour, Constance’s fate apparently rests with him doing whatever it is that Rochefort wants from him.

Ivan is holding the torch, Rochefort his Uzi of course and there is another man, tall, at least 6 ft 3 or 4 and d’Artagnan notices that he looks nothing like the thugs that had burst in the previous evening when he’d attacked Rochefort with the towel bar. This man is obviously also Russian and well-dressed like Ivan, and he looks like a professional bodyguard, or some kind of secret service operative, not muscle for hire.

Yianna comes in carrying a chair, and she deposits it and scurries out the door, her body language betraying her fright.

Rochefort takes the chair and pulls it forward and sits directly across from d’Artagnan.

“As you saw for yourself your little girlfriend has not been mistreated in anyway, I’ve kept her safe and sound for you,” Rochefort says pleasantly. The light moves ever so slightly and d’Artagnan’s gaze flickers to Ivan who has a look on his face that is unmistakable; Rochefort has hit a nerve with the boy. He’d suspected it earlier as well, something in the way he’d taken Constance’s arm and his assurance that nothing would happen to her; he’s become attached to Constance, maybe even more than that. And it’s most likely Ivan that has kept her safe, not Rochefort, he’s the kind of snake that would sell his own mother for the right price.

“If you hadn’t taken her in the first place she wouldn’t have needed you to look after her,” d’Artagnan replies carefully, fishing.

“To be honest, it was on a whim; the operation in France had turned out to be a bit of a disaster so when the girl practically fell into my lap I grabbed her, she was my consolation prize, something to offer my employer until we could regroup. I must admit though watching you fall apart was one of the highlights of my year, you truly are a tragic little boy aren’t you? The famously brilliant and unstoppable d’Artagnan, falling to bits over a girl, it was exquisite, truly.”

In moments like this it takes everything that d’Artagnan has ever learned and trained for to keep his body calm, his pulse steady, his breathing even, his mind clear, otherwise that little part of him that makes him act without thinking first takes over and everything else becomes a blur. Rochefort is taunting him, baiting him, for his own pleasure though because the two Russians do not look happy with him. 

“What can I say? I’m half-French, half-Italian, it’s a volatile combination for certain,” he answers evenly. “We love as deeply as we hate, it’s a gift and a curse.”

Rochefort doesn’t find him funny. D’Artagnan is sure he’d been hoping for a reason to have to restrain him or maybe even tase him again, but the Russians are not on the same page, they look very impatient and quite furious to be honest.

“Enough about your mongrel heritage, I couldn’t give a toss if granny came from Timbuktu, all I care is that you cooperate or my employer will be very angry and take it out on the lovely Constance.”

Another tightening of the jaw from Ivan confirms that Constance is probably not in danger…not from him at least. 

“Alright, I’ll bite, who is your employer and what does he want me to do?”

Rochefort nods slowly. “Finally. It’s very simple; Constance stays with me while you trade yourself for Athos and Aramis, at which point she will be set free and the two of you can ride off into the sunset and spend the rest of your lives with the knowledge that the pair of you are alive while your beloved brothers are dead. It’s a win-win for me, that’s to be certain,” he adds with a sneer.

“No.” There was never any other answer so there was never anything to think about. The word comes out of his mouth automatically, confidently, and with the full meaning of the word behind it.

“Then I will kill your girl…very slowly,” Rochefort informs him with obvious relish.

A muscle in his neck tightens involuntarily but he remains for the most part calm. “You will probably kill her anyway, you’ve proved to me, over and over again that you cannot be trusted.”

“We have no use for the girl,” the tall Russian says in lightly accented English as he steps forward. Ivan’s posture is tense but this man is completely composed. “You will have my personal guarantee that the girl will be set free as soon as the exchange is made. This has nothing to do with either of you.”

“And who might you be, friend, that I should accept your personal guarantee? And by the way, what the hell do you want with Athos and Aramis anyway? We’re a team, the five of us are always equally responsible for anything that takes place on a mission, if you want some kind of revenge, you already have me, I’m most likely to blame anyhow, I have a tendency to act…independently for the most part, I’m the man you want, not them.”

“No, out of the question. I didn’t even know you and the girl existed, or this fifth person you mention. My employer wants these two, Athos and Aramis, delivered to him alive, no one else.”

“Listen mate, if I’m going to be betraying my friends I should at least know who and why, come on, give me something to work with,” d’Artagnan says innocently. Information is power; day one, lesson one.

“My God, you never shut up do you! It’s not up for negotiation you idiot, it’s the two of you for the two of them, end of story!” Rochefort snarls.

“Regardless, it will never happen anyway. They think Constance is already dead and as for me, well Aramis and I are not even on speaking terms, if you’ve been watching us you’d know that,” d’Artagnan says smugly even though he knows damn well that Aramis would put a bullet in his own brain for any of them. “He won’t willingly trade himself for me and Athos simply won’t be allowed to, it’s policy, we don’t negotiate with kidnappers and terrorists. Have you contacted them? Have they replied to you?”

“I’ve contacted them…we’re waiting for a reply,” Rochefort says, faltering, losing some of his steam. That makes d’Artagnan feel a little sick to his stomach but he doesn’t let his disappointment show, he has Constance to worry about as well.

“Listen boy, you need to find a way to make this happen,” the Russian tell him firmly. “I don’t want to hurt you or the girl, or else you would have been taken with a lot less care and treated much worse. But I have a job to do and an employer who is a very powerful man. You must persuade them or else I will have no choice but to deliver the two of you to him in the place of your friends, and I can promise you, he will not be happy with that.”

Betray his brothers to save Constance? He wouldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, she would never agree anyway. But if he lost her again…and what would her fate be if they were taken to Russia? Maybe a fate worse than death, he thinks, horrified. One thing for certain is that it’s the Russians who hold all the power, not Rochefort. The bastard had sold them to the highest bidder he guesses, someone who wouldn’t care about the bounty on his head and it makes sense that it would be some Russian oligarch, just about anyone else would have trapped Rochefort and taken the money, full stop.

“How am I supposed to convince them to hand themselves over to certain death anyway? I told you, Aramis doesn’t even care, trust me, and Athos is too important to the government to give himself up, they won’t let him and he probably won’t do it anyway because I’m just one guy and he has an obligation to hundreds of people. No, it won’t ever happen, but I’m valuable in other ways, if this arsehole has briefed you properly you will know that I am one of the best hackers on the planet; if you let Constance go I will come and work for you and your boss, that’s my counter offer.” It’s the only card he has up his sleeve and he prays they will take it.

Ivan and the other man discuss it in Russian between themselves, leaving Rochefort at a disadvantage but d'Artagnan is pretty fluent so he understands most of their conversation; Ivan tries to convince him they should accept d'Artagnan's offer, but the older man is hesitant. 

“We will wait. If these men are truly willing to leave you to die then I will consider passing your offer on to my employer.”

“And Constance?”

“If he accepts you will come with us and she will be set free of course, I am a man of my word, as is my employer.”

D’Artagnan searches Ivan’s gaze for something, anything to let him know that Constance won’t be harmed but the young man looks distracted and pensive.

“I don’t think Yev will be very happy…” Rochefort begins.

“I don’t give a damn what you think Rochefort, you work for us, we do not work for you!” the Russian warns and Rochefort looks shocked, especially because he’s been berated in front of d’Artagnan. The blond man gets up from the chair and pulls it towards the door with him. “You’d better hope that your friends reply quickly, the man in charge won’t be happy with any of us otherwise, trust me,” he tells d’Artagnan, but he’s looking at the Russian as he says it, clearly challenging him, implying that he will go over his head if necessary. Rochefort, he acknowledges, is not in this for the money, his whole focus is revenge and that makes him a wild card. Ivan and the other man may not want Constance harmed, but Rochefort would happily see all five of them dead. The discord among them could be to d’Artagnan’s favour, but it could also mean complete disaster as well.

“My offer stands no matter what,” d’Artagnan says as they’re leaving, meaning it. “Free the girl, leave my teammates alone and you can have me, I will come willingly and I promise you I am much more valuable than any of the rest of them combined.” This is the only way he can keep everyone he loves safe and alive and maybe, at some point, he can make his escape, he’s done so from worst places.

The tall Russian takes the torch and shoos Ivan and Rochefort out the door and closes is behind them. “That would be the best outcome for everyone else of course, but what about you? Would you truly come willingly? Or would you trick us into taking you to Moscow only for you to refuse to work for us.”

“I am a man of my word as well; if you knew anything about me you’d know the lengths I’d go to for my colleagues and my fiancée, don’t let Rochefort try and convince you otherwise. He has a grudge against us, for him it’s personal, don’t let that stand in the way of a good business deal. I assure you I can hack into anything, Rochefort knows this for a fact, he stole my personnel file, he knows everything about me,” d’Artagnan tells him honestly. 

“Maybe, but my employer has a personal interest as well, a grudge against the men who sent him to prison.”

D’Artagnan nods slowly. He has no idea what this is actually all about, only that it must have been before his time. But he does know that money talks and he is worth a small fortune, regardless of this mystery man’s thirst for revenge.

“You seem like a man of above-average intelligence. Simply convince him that taking me makes good business sense whereas revenge is over in a second. I will even make sure that none of you is in any way implicated in my kidnapping by saying I’ve gone along willingly; I am a government agent, my word will be accepted, it’s all been a big misunderstanding, a practical joke, nothing more,” d’Artagnan says, sweetening the deal, knowing that he will be whoring his skills out to someone who is not above kidnapping and murder, the barrel of a gun on the back of his neck, day in and day out, but what else can he do?

The Russian simply nods and he opens the door and goes, taking the torch with him and plunging the room back into darkness. D’Artagnan throws himself flat back onto the bed and tries to calm his trembling body. He’d put on a stellar performance but he’s only human and what he’s just offered to do makes him want to vomit. He’ll probably end up a traitor or worse, but what choice does he have? 

He’s managed to keep himself together until now and he doesn’t regret what he’s done, he only wonders if once it actually happens if he’ll be able to hold on to his sanity or will he simply go mad.

 

To be continued...

 

*In the UK the Amber Alert for missing children is called Child Rescue Alert. I mean no disrespect by referring to this life-saving program in this story, it’s simply to drive home Athos’ terror and his fear and certainly not to hurt or offend anyone. Thank you.


	7. Chapter 7

Someone is shaking Constance gently and although she startles, when she sees it’s Ivan, she actually breathes a sigh of relief. 

“Listen, you need to get dressed, we have to leave from here…” Ivan tells her and she bolts upright, terrified. 

“Has Rochefort done something to d’Artagnan?” she asks fearfully. “He hates him, me too for that matter…”

“No, but we need to leave from this house, so get ready, you will see d’Artagnan soon, I promise,” he assures her, but Constance is uneasy because Ivan is clearly rattled.

“Ivan, you won’t hurt him, will you? He’s been shot three times in less than a year and had a motorbike accident as well recently, please…”

The room is mostly dark aside from a lamp in the far corner but Constance sees various emotions cross the young man’s face, the most prominent of all…sadness.

“No, Constance, neither of you will be harmed if he simply does what he’s told, I promise,” he answers quietly, not giving her any further information. “Now hurry, please,” he tells her and he leaves her alone to get dressed.

Constance still has no idea what this is all about, she doesn’t know if d’Artagnan does either because she hasn’t seen him since lunch the previous day but Ivan had assured her that he was fine and she’d believed him. Ivan had been nothing like she’d expected these past two months or so, and she’s been harboring a suspicion that she’d been reluctant to share with d’Artagnan, to keep him from getting riled up of course, but she’s pretty sure the boy has a thing for her. He’s been very solicitous and he doesn’t let anyone near her aside from Yianna…not even Rochefort is ever alone with her. And there was that one time that she doesn’t want to remember, mostly because it embarrasses her that she’d been taken by surprise and had been unable to defend herself fully, but there is currently one man less in the house as a result of that incident and Constance is pretty sure that Ivan had blown the bastard’s brains out; he’d been trembling with rage when they’d dragged Anton out of her room, and when he’d returned to check on her later he looked righteous and smug, his clothes splattered from neck to waist with blood.

When she’s dressed, teeth brushed and hair tied back neatly Yianna comes to take her down one flight to d’Artagnan’s room and she finds him wearing his jacket and trainers, and discussing something angrily with Ivan in hushed tones in Russian, but they go silent the minute she walks in and although she speaks the language she hadn’t been able to catch anything they’d said.

“We need to move from here and I’m sorry to say that you and him will have to go in into the boot for a little while,” Ivan says apologetically.

She turns to d’Artagnan who looks shifty and guilty of something for sure and she’s about to accuse him when one of the hired muscle, an older man with a jagged scar on his left cheek comes in and tells Ivan it’s time to go.

“So, the boot of a car? And what the fuck are you two up to?” she demands of d’Artagnan in a whisper. “What aren’t you telling me?” 

“Nothing, but we’ve got to cooperate, Rochefort is a dangerous bastard Constance and we can’t cross him…not tonight at least,” he tells her but she knows him, she knows him better that he thinks, and she wants to call bullshit…but she doesn’t because she also trusts him. If he says they need to cooperate she will, for the moment at least.

The five of them go down to the garage and d’Artagnan helps Constance into the large boot of a new Mercedes, and climbs in beside her, apologising profusely and looking completely flustered, but promising to explain later. He squeezes her hand and kisses her briefly before Ivan closes them in and the car drives off.

She calculates they’re travelling for about fifteen minutes during which time d’Artagnan is silent and clinging to her, mostly because there’s not much space but there’s something more there, something much more desperate but she doesn’t ask, she has no idea if they can hear them and so for the moment she remains quiet. At some point the car stops for a few moments longer than a stop-light would warrant and Constance feels a door open and then close before the car continues to its destination.

When the car finally comes to a complete stop the boot is opened from the outside and d’Artagnan jumps out and offers her a hand to climb down, and at once he’s hugging her close and uttering apolgies again, but Rochefort, who has suddenly appeared along with the man she knows as Nikolai and another five hired guns, demands that d’Artagnan let her go.

“That’s enough of that, children,” he sneers and d’Artagnan releases her reluctantly and takes a few steps away from her. Constance takes a good look at d’Artagnan and notes that her fiancé looks pale and anxious and nothing like he had just hours earlier, like he’d aged ten years in that short time and Constance will go mad if she doesn’t find out exactly what is happening.

“Ivan, take the ladies upstairs, to the lounge in the office,” Nikolai tells the young Russian. Ivan doesn’t look pleased but he indicates that Constance and Yianna should follow.

“I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me what’s going on here!” Constance demands. She looks around and sees that the car has driven into a warehouse of some sort and it’s packed with stacks of crates. There is spiral staircase behind her that leads to an upper floor which covers only a small part of the huge space and she crosses her arms over her chest and doesn’t budge.

“Constance, I promise, it’s alright, everything is fine, this is almost over,” d’Aragnan begins earnestly but she’s not having anymore of his bullshit.

“I have been a prisoner for two months, moved from place to place, country to country – did you know I came through customs in one of these crates?” she asks a stunned d’Artagnan, “and to top it off I’ve I just travelled fifteen minutes in the boot of a car and you want me to believe that everything is alright?”

“Constance, please…” he tries, but Rochefort is apparently growing impatient and he points his ever-present Uzi at d’Artagnan and removes the first of two safeties. 

“Ivan, escort the ladies upstairs…now,” he says firmly and he flicks off the second safety with relish. Constance goes rigid and she meets d’Artagnan’s gaze, properly terrified now, not for herself but for him.

“Go on, luv, it’s fine, really,” he urges her with an attempt at a smile and she has no choice but to follow Yianna up the metal stairs and into what appears to be an office with a lounge and Ivan locks the door behind him and tells them both to sit.

“Ivan, please, don’t let them hurt him,” Constance implores desperately, trying to think. “Listen, maybe we can come up with some kind of a deal? I have special skills, I can...”

Ivan grabs her and covers her mouth with one hand and holds her tightly against him with the other.

“Yes, I know, you all have special skills,” he says, urging her silently to keep her mouth shut. “You can hit a target from a thousand feet and blow up tanks with chewing gum, I know, you are all _very_ special,” he sneers, but it’s all for show, for the listening device he indicates is hidden in a small radio on the desk.

Constance is trembling now, she hadn’t expected Ivan to grab her like that and her fear for d’Artagnan just heightens her anxiety. Ivan truly looks contrite when he gently but firmly pushes her to sit down on the sofa beside a teary Yianna.

“If your boyfriend does as he’s told, you will be freed very soon. So let’s just relax for a little while, go back to sleep if you like, there’s a blanket in her somewhere…” he says, looking in a cupboard. “Or Yianna can make you some tea if you prefer?”

“No, thank you,” Constance replies dully, feeling helpless. Something is happening down below, something that could possibly get d’Artagnan killed and she can’t do a thing to stop it. Tea and a blanket won’t change the fact that they could very well be close to losing each other again, maybe this time for good.

 

*************************************************

 

With contact made, the debate over how to proceed has everyone up in arms and tempers flaring.

Sylvie is adamant that aside from retrieving d’Artagnan, they must apprehend the perpetrators as a matter of national security and she is in favour of a full-on tactical assault. Aramis and Ryder however insist that d’Artagnan should be their first priority and a row ensues. Although Porthos leans towards Aramis and Ryder’s point of view that rescuing d’Artagnan safely should be their priority, he acknowledges that Sylvie is simply following protocol. Since the final decision ultimately rests with Athos though, who has so far been completely silent and pensive, Porthos will wait to see what he suggests before speaking his mind.

The phone number gives them nothing, neither does the location the text had come from; the number is disposable of course and the text had come via an internet program that routed it around the world so it’s a dead end. Athos sends a text back to the number requesting proof of life and it’s near midnight when they disperse and up to that point there had been no reply. In the meanwhile, there are still a few buildings to check in the morning and they all hope that something will turn up before they are forced to make any difficult decisions.

The police have set up checkpoints for every vehicle in and out of town, including buses, and everyone boarding a train must show some form of ID. With the port and marina also closed to all outgoing vessels all they can do is hope that they have d’Artagnan and his kidnappers trapped within Dover. Porthos is aware that the yacht in the marina and the car found on the outskirts of town don’t actually prove anything but Athos and Sylvie are both quite insistent that they remain focused on Dover, mostly because they have no other intel to suggest anywhere else at the moment.

To make matters worse word has come from London that Ivan Grigorievich and the girl Yianna can’t be detained; Treville has done his best of course but the powers-that-be refuse to issue any order to detain them for questioning when there is simply no hard evidence linking them to d’Artagnan’s abduction. The minute the marina and port re-open they will be free to leave and there is nothing that Sylvie or Athos can do about it. For the moment, the yacht is under twenty four hour surveillance by Sylvie’s people but none of the persons of interest have approached it as of yet.

Athos, Aramis and Porthos head back to the hotel, a small budget place with only vending machines and no real café or bar, but none of them want anything aside from showers and a few hours sleep. They’ve got one room with two double beds for security purposes and they silently take turns showering, Aramis sharing a bed with Porthos, which is the usual set up when they’re in tight quarters, but there’s nothing usual or normal about this situation and Porthos finds sharing with the jittery Aramis difficult to say the least.

Athos is sitting up in bed, phone beside him, focused on something on his laptop, Aramis is fidgeting, tossing and turning and Porthos is too exhausted to fall asleep. There’s so much going on in his head he can’t shut it off even though he literally feels sick from exhaustion, a steady throb at his temples and an upset stomach that no amount of antacids can calm. He’s concerned for Ellie and Marie, worried about the boy, and he’s feeling a hefty dose of guilt for the grief he’s given Aramis since the minute he’d walked into his office. 

Although Porthos feels fully justified for giving Aramis a bollocking for disappearing to Cyprus, he also knows that Aramis had taken on more than all of them had after Constance’s death and d’Artagnan had truly put them all through hell. Porthos however is still upset and hurt, that won’t just go away overnight, but Aramis is his friend, his brother, and watching him suffer brings Porthos no joy. Every time the other man manages to fall asleep Porthos feels him jerk awake, and he’s woken him himself twice already for mumbling and thrashing in his sleep. 

Near two, Porthos finds himself finally dozing off when the shrill ringing of his phone has the three of them upright within seconds. It’s Ryder, and Porthos puts him on speaker phone.

“So Tei was checking warehouses, yeah? Not abandoned, but in use and he starts tracing the companies, owners, stockholders and so forth and he finds a few that belong to Russians right…”

“And?” Porthos demands.

“And there’s one company called Treemax Shipping, and if you peel back the layers, which wasn’t easy mind you…”

“I swear to God, if you don’t spit it out I’m transferring you to the bloody Falklands!” Porthos threatens.

“Alright, alright! Anyway, under all those layers are the names of the actual owners of the company; Ivan and Ekaterina Grigorievich. The boss sent Trip and the others to check it out and they saw a car enter, a new Mercedes, registered to Treemax and guess who was sitting in the passenger seat? Nikolai Orlov and in the back, Ivan Grigorievich and Yianna Dubrova.”

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” Porthos breathes, “We’ve got them.” Athos lets out a loud sigh of relief but Aramis makes a sound like a sob and he literally collapses back onto the bed. 

“Bingo. Treville is on his way and Sylvie is calling for a full tactical assault…”

“That could get d’Artagnan killed!” Athos hisses, “and she hasn’t consulted me!”

“Sir, with all due respect it’s what we do and I’m sure we can…”

“No one moves a muscle until we get there, understood? How many men are watching the warehouse?” Porthos questions, cutting him off, while the three of them look around the room for clean clothes.

“Four at the moment, Trip’s Unit only, one on each corner but we need to make a decision quickly, before they’re on the move again…or worse…” Ryder warns.

“We’ll be there in ten,” Porthos says and cuts the line. He tosses Aramis his Kevlar and puts on his own over his jumper. 

“This is very odd though, we haven’t received any reply to your request for proof of life or any other instructions,” Aramis says worriedly, sliding his vest over his head. 

“I agree, brother, aside from the obvious something else is very wrong here,” Athos replies. “Porthos, a full tactical assault could get him killed, we need to come up with a better plan and soon.”

“Athos, I don’t actually think there’s another way, how did you think this was gonna happen, aside from you lot going kamikaze and trading yourselves for ‘im?” 

Athos shakes his head. “Regardless, we have no idea of his physical or mental state, how can we know how he will react or if he is in a position to even cooperate? And what if they just put a bullet in his head when we show up…out of spite?”

Aramis goes pale and rigid and Porthos instinctively grabs his arm to steady him. “And what if he’s already dead?” Aramis whispers fearfully.

“None o’ that now, mate, if you think you can’t ‘andle this you can sit this out, no one will judge you for it, brother,” Porthos tells him sincerely. 

Aramis visibly reacts to Porthos’ use of the familiar endearment and he quickly shakes his head. “No, I’m fine, truly,” he says clearly determined and he shakes of Porthos’ arm gently with a nod and he secures the fastenings on his rifle case and checks the clips on his handguns.

Porthos is very aware of the fact that Aramis had become decidedly more focused from the second he’d said that one word, _brother_ ; a term that means so much to all of them and he acknowledges that the impact of that one meaningfully-uttered word has power to fix just about anything that’s wrong between them.

Holding open the door for the others to exit the room with their kit, Porthos makes a vow to himself to never forget that again, to never hold a grudge or let anything ever come between them because together, they can do just about anything, divided they’re about as useful as a three-pound coin.

 

************************************

 

“I can’t believe you’re taking this stupid boy instead of sticking to the original plan, Yev will be furious!” Rochefort hisses at the man d’Artagnan now knows is called Nikolai, but the tall Russian is adamant.

“It’s actually Yev’s decision, it’s gotten too messy, there are police everywhere and we have a small window of opportunity to leave the country,” Nikolai informs him. “And there’s the matter of the arrest warrant that’s been issued for me because you were too incompetent to grab the boy yourself, if I am detained not even Yev will be able to secure my release! Why do you care anyway? You’ve been well paid, Rochefort, what we do from here and on shouldn’t concern you at all.”

“It does because this is personal for him, he wants to see us all dead, you must have known that when you hired him, didn’t you?” d’Artagnan informs Nikolai and to his satisfaction Rochefort turns beet red.

“I should have had you killed months ago!” the blond man snarls. “You are constantly getting in my way you obnoxious, idiotic little boy,” he screeches and he lunges for him, only to be held back and efficiently disarmed by two of the Russians.

“Enough!” Nikolai shouts, seething. “We had a business arrangement, you’ve been paid and it’s done. Now I suggest, for your own safety of course, that you disappear as soon as possible because we are leaving. Our window of opportunity expires when our people go off shift at Gatwick.”

“So that’s how we’re getting passed customs and immigration?” d’Artagnan asks. He hadn’t really considered the logistics until that moment; everything had happened so fast from the moment that Ivan had woken him and only now is he thinking straight.

“Yes, of course, anyone can be bought for the right price, don’t tell me you are actually surprised?” he asks, incredulous. “We are leaving for Moscow by private jet in just under three hours from now. You can say your goodbyes to Constance in the car on the way, we will leave her at Gatwick, safe and sound, as agreed.”

_Say your goodbyes to Constance_

“Right,” d’Artagnan says woodenly, suddenly feeling the need to sit down. 

“There will be roadblocks, you fool, they know we’re somewhere close, wasn’t it your plan to lead them here?” Rochefort reminds Nikolai, shaking off the two men holding him. “You wanted them to follow the trail right to us, switch this idiot for the other two, and use the girl as leverage so he would to misdirect the police while you left on the yacht. All very neat and tidy…in theory of course.”

Nikolai chuckles. “Yes, and all of it a diversion, to have everyone focus on the yacht while we made our escape by air.”

“Right, and how do you plan to get there when we’ve lured the entire Counter-terrorism unit here?” Rochefort growls. “And where am I supposed to go?”

“How we plan to get there is none of your concern and it was never part of our agreement to take you with us! Now, I suggest that you figure out how to get yourself as far away from Dover as possible…as soon as possible, agreed?”

“You know he lied to you about everything, from the start,” d’Artagnan says dully, feeling mostly hopeless at this point and hoping that Nikolai might get angry enough to blow Rochefort’s brains out since he himself won’t get the chance. “He fucked up in France and then he led you to believe that Athos and Aramis would simply hand themselves over for me, which would have never happened of course, he’s a lying sack of shit who used you to…”

Before he can finish Rochefort lunges for him and they end upon the ground and the blond man gets off a few good punches before d’Artagnan shakes off the surprise and flips him over and returns the favour, but they’re being pulled apart by the Russians before d’Artagnan can break his neck.

“You are the liar! I’ve spent the last five years listening to how nauseatingly ridiculous the five of you behaved if one of you so much as got a paper cut! You know damned well they would have traded themselves for you,” he spits, blood running from his mouth. “Treville’s heroic Musketeers, _all for one_!” Rochefort sneers. “It was all perfectly planned, and then you opened your big mouth and offered to whore yourself out to Yev. How does it feel knowing that at some point you will most likely betray your country, little boy, hmn? Not so smug anymore, are you?”

“No, not smug at all,” d’Artagnan replies without any emotion whatsoever. “I’ll do what I’ve promised because I ‘ave to, you on the other hand willingly betrayed your colleagues, your country and your honour, at least I’ll be doing it with a gun to my head.”

“Mother of Christ, enough of this!” Nikolai growls. “Take one of the cars and disappear, Rochefort, or else I will let the boy have another go at you and I have a feeling that won’t end well for you.”

There’s a moment where d’Artagnan thinks that Rochefort plans to lunge for him again, and he desperately hopes that he does, but the silence if broken by one of Nikolai’s men, who comes running from the security monitors beside the warehouse door and in a panic, he informs Nikolai that there is someone outside. 

Nikolai drags d’Artagnan by the arm towards the monitors. “Who is that?” he demands, pointing at the grainy picture on the screen. It’s nearly light outside but d’Artagnan can’t tell which one of his comrades is crouched behind the concrete wall that surrounds the warehouse’s loading bay.

So many emotions pass through his head; shock, relief, but mostly fear. The arrival of the cavalry has just put Constance in danger and he has no way of letting them know that.

“Special Operations,” he says hoarsely. The fact that they’d found them means that Porthos must have a massive operation in play and this scares the shit out of him, how will he manage to keep Constance safe now?

Nikolai goes rigid and his face becomes an ugly mask of rage and he lets out a string of curses in Russian before composing himself. “You will figure out a way to fix this,” Nikolai tells d’Artagnan with deadly calm, “Or I will be forced to kill you and the girl.”

“How? What am I supposed to do, tell them it’s all been a mistake, that I’ve been hanging with you lot drinking vodka and playing poker?” d’Artagnan asks sarcastically. 

“Exactly!” Rochefort says, moving forward and poking his finger in d’Artagnan’s face. “That is exactly what you will tell them.”

“You truly are mad, you know that? They won’t believe me!”

“Last night you said otherwise?” Nikolai reminds him.

“Yes, once we’d gone, by facetime or phone, not in some shady warehouse with you threatening to kill Constance if I fuck it all up!” he says, feeling near hysterical.

Rochefort hands him a phone. “Text Athos, tell him you will meet with him here, now, so you can explain this terrible misunderstanding!” 

Suddenly the dynamics shift, and Nikolai allows Rochefort to take charge again, which makes Constance’s safety precarious, regardless of Ivan’s obvious crush on his fiancée. 

D’Artagnan takes the phone and types quickly; ‘come to Treemax shipping, Dover Port, I think there’s been some kind of a cock-up mate!’ He presses send and hands it back to Rochefort.

“I will do everything in my power to convince them but if I can’t, please, don’t hurt Constance, she doesn’t deserve this, she’s been through hell…” d’Artagnan implores of Nikolai, “Please…”

“See? I told you Nikolai, this is who they are, begging for each other’s lives, fighting to take a bullet for one another, it’s disgusting, I can’t believe they’ve actually survived this long!” Rochefort tells Nikolai, sounding fully vindicated.

D’Aragnan ignores him and catches Nikolai’s cold gaze once more but the Russian doesn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. He tells the others to arm themselves heavily and be ready.

The phone chirps and Rochefort reads Athos’ reply. “He’ll be here in ten minutes…as long as you send a _selfie_?”

“Proof of life you idiot,” d’Artagnan replies with a sneer and he grabs the phone, snaps a photo of himself with a forced smile and presses send. A reply come back to meet outside of the warehouse in ten. “It’s on, ten minutes.”

Nikolai nods slowly. “Tell them to cancel the arrest warrant, it was all a misunderstanding, Ivan is your friend, you met him on holiday or at University, you were not kidnapped, it was a joke, we are going sailing, nothing more. Rochefort and I will be upstairs with your girl, if you do anything to give yourself away I will kill her. I will be watching your every move on the monitors, boy, do not cross me!”

“Liseten, Athos would do anything to get Constance back safely! Kill me if you want and offer them Constance, do it now, just shoot me, and when Athos comes trade your freedom for Constance, I promise you they will do anything to get her back!” d’Artagnan tells him desperately. 

“Most people are begging for their lives even after the bullet has left the chamber. Is there something wrong with your head, boy?” Nikolai ask, truly shocked. 

“Probably,” d’Artagnan admits. “I don’t think they will believe a word I say so if you’re gonna to threaten me with Constance just kill me now, I have a feeling I’m as good as dead anyway. I’m telling you, show them Constance, you will get whatever you want.”

Nikolai shakes his head like he’s trying to believe everything he’s hearing. “You will convince them or I will kill you both, there is your incentive, take it or leave it.”

“If you kill her you lose all your power to bargain with Athos, remember that before you do anything to ‘urt her,” d’Artagnan insists. “He has the power to call off Special Ops and let you leave on the boat…ask that wanker,” he says, indicating Rochefort, “he knows that Athos and his boss work above the law when they ‘ave to, and for Constance they’d do anything!”

One of the thugs, the man with the scar tells Nikolai that a car has arrived with three passengers. He also informs him that there are four heavily armed men on the four corners of the building, but no one else and no other vehicles that they can see.

“No, I don’t trust this Athos or his boss or any of you for that matter,” Nikolai replies firmly. “These men will be down here, watching you. If you tip off your friends they will be killed and then the door will go down and you and Constance will be trapped in here, with us, and you will watch as I kill her very, very slowly...she will suffer, I promise you,” Nikolai says carefully, to make sure that d’Artagnan understands everything that he is saying. “By the time these Special Operations soldiers manage to get inside she will be in pieces and so will you.”

“Just five minutes ago you promised to leave her at Gatwick,” d’Artagnan snarls, “and now you threaten to torture her?”

“That agreement still stands, providing of course that you get find us away out of here! Now go, stand in front of the door, but do not go outside and do not let them in,” Nikolai warns and he and Rochefort, his sneering, pasty face bleeding from d’Artagnan’s punches, hurry up the spiral staircase. 

One of the thugs throws d’Artagnan a wet rag and indicates his bloodied nose and he does his best to clean the blood from his upper lip, tossing aside the towel when it comes away clean. He takes slow steps towards the entrance and when he’s standing in front of it someone presses the button and the door begins to roll up, stopping half way, and he looks around and sees that the Russians have scattered.

When he looks outside he sees Athos, Porthos and Aramis, and for a moment he forgets everything aside from the fact that Aramis is back, and standing in front of him…but with a gun pointed directly at his chest. 

 

***********************************************

 

Rewind twenty minutes and we find the rest of the Musketeers in the car on the way to meet Sylvie…

Athos gets a text and he hands the phone to Porthos who is sitting in the passenger seat.

“What does it say?” Athos asks urgently.

Porthos makes an angry noise, something between a growl and a roar. “It says that our boy is the stupidest, most ridiculous twat on the planet, that’s what it says!”

Aramis grabs the phone from his hand. “It says that d’Artagnan has apparently made a deal with the devil. God help us.”

 

**********************************************

 

And then fast forward and we have our long awaited reunion only not the way we’d have hoped…

“Hey, what’s with the weapons, lads…?” d’Aragnan complains loudly.

“We’ve been under the impression that someone had taken you against your will, forgive us for feeling a bit…suspicious?” Athos states drily, Glock in hand but pointing towards the ground.

“Bollocks, sorry, that was Ivan…my mate from Uni, it was his idea of a practical joke, he got his Uncle to grab me, right, and then I find myself at his dad’s place here in Dover trussed up an’ all that, because he thought it would be funny…” he says, trailing off with a weak chuckle, knowing full well that he’s not convincing anyone. “We’re going sailing, they’ve got this massive yacht in the marina, you lot have got to see it, it’s amazing.”

“His uncle grabbed you for a joke?” Aramis questions, tilting his head to the side in that familiar way that makes d’Artagnan literally ache. “We received a text, asking for an exchange, was that part of this…joke? We’ve been worried sick, why didn’t you at least ring?”

“Yeah, sorry about that, we were busy, catching up, you know how it is,” he says a bit hoarsely but he clears his throat. “Listen, Nikolai, the uncle I mean, you lot have him on the most wanted list apparently for kidnapping me, his embassy rang us, freaking out, can you fix that please? I promise, it really was nothing more than a prank gone sideways.”

“And where are you and your mate _Ivan_ planning to go and for how long? You’re only on sick leave for another two weeks.” Porthos queries, one brow raising. 

“I’ll be back by then, we’re going to the south of France, I could use some time away,” d’Artagnan replies, trying to use the fact that he is supposed to be in mourning in his favour. “You all know it’s been a very difficult time for me…”

“Yes, we certainly do,” Athos assures him emphatically, “but you never mentioned you had a friend named Ivan from Uni or that you were planning on going abroad?”

“That’s because he just showed up out of the blue, the rest I just told you!” d’Artagnan insists, starting to feel like he’s already losing control of this. “Look, you really don’t need to be pointing your guns at me, gents, this is pretty mental, you know, what’s gotten into you? I explained and apologised, so it’s done, it’s over…”

“Maybe, but I’m gonna have to ask Sylvie, she won’t be pleased that you’re supposed to be home, recuperating, and your planning on goin’ off on holiday with Ivan,” Porthos says pointedly and d’Artagnan feels himself unravelling, slowly. 

“Come on, brother, that’s not fair,” he complains, his voice losing some of its steadiness. 

“This is a strange place to be, by the way, why are you and your mate and his uncle in some warehouse and not this massive yacht?” Aramis wonders suspiciously.

“This place belongs to them, it’s their family business, they had some papers to signs and…stuff to do, look can you please just fix it so we can go?”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re hiding something,” Aramis says slowly and he inches forward.

“I don’t know why you’d care anyway, I haven’t heard from you in ages!” d’Artagnan answers testily, changing tactics, trying very hard to convince the armed men who are listening and hoping that Aramis doesn’t take it to heart. The worst thing that could happen now would be for them to part on bad terms, it’s enough he’s gambled his life away, for Aramis to think he’s angry with him is just another twist of the knife in his heart.

“Yes well, your meltdown was pretty epic! Truly, I’d expected more from you to be honest,” Aramis replies, looking smug and a bit too self-righteous for d’Artagnan’s somewhat damaged mental state and it take him a moment to balance himself. 

“That’s enough, both of you,” Athos says quietly, also taking a few steps forward. “I think your trip with Ivan can wait, lad, you’re not looking at all well. You’ve missed a doctor’s appointment and all your medication is back at your flat, why don’t you just come home with us, hmn? I’m sure your friend will understand…”

“Athos, I appreciate your concern, really, but I could use some time away and I haven’t seen Ivan in…a while,” he answers shakily. “Look, can you just fix that problem with Ivan’s uncle so we can leave? I promise, I’m fine…”

“I know you’re an adult, but trust me when I say I only have your best interests at heart,” Athos tells him with genuine sincerity and that’s it, that is d’Artagnan’s undoing. The expression on the older man’s face, his words and his tone…d’Artagnan feel overwhelmed, like he’s drowning in quicksand and there’s nothing to grab hold of, nothing left to cling to.

It’s obvious that they won’t be leaving without him. D’Artagnan had known it was a long-shot, a gamble, but he simply had no other cards to play and now he is standing at the precipice, with the most difficult choice of his life before him. In front of him are the three men who have had his back for the past five years in every sense of the phrase, his brothers, his friends, his family. Behind him, in the warehouse is the woman he’d thought he’d lost, the only person he’s ever loved and will ever love, and standing between them, deciding their fate, is him. 

Someone once told him, the key to a good trick is to make people look the other way…

“I’m sorry lads, but I can’t do that,” d’Artagnan says finally. 

One unwanted tear escapes and rolls down his face, disappearing into his scruffy beard. Another follows and he swallows a silent sob and turns to meet Aramis’ startled gaze. 

“Shoot me,” he whispers, so softly he can’t be sure they’ve actually heard him but the varying expressions that pass over his brothers’ faces confirm that they have; Athos shock and fear, Porthos naked fury but Aramis gets it, he understands what he’s asking him to do, even if he doesn’t understand why.

“Wait a minute…is this some kind of a trap?” Aramis asks, his expression morphing from suspicion to fury. “Have you betrayed us to someone?” he demands, faking his outrage beautifully. “Just what the fuck is going on here?”

“What? No, of course not, I swear…” d’Artagnan says, and he takes a few steps back, raising his hands and pretending to be afraid, while giving Aramis just the right distance for a through and through.

“You’re lying!” Aramis cries, taking aim at d’Artagnan. Athos and Porthos look panicked and they shout at Aramis to calm down, not to shoot, but Aramis doesn’t back down. It’s perfect.

“I’ll kill you!” Aramis roars and he fires, shooting d’Artagnan in the shoulder, a perfect through and through shot that sends him flying backwards and he hits the ground with a spectacular thud. The three of them surge forward into the warehouse and take cover behind the stack of crates near the door to d’Artagnan’s left.

Even though he knew it was coming d’Artagnan’s reaction of shock and pain are very real and he lays there, stunned and breathless as the Russians come out from hiding and surge forward, shooting at the rows of wooden crates and he hears the sound of his brothers’ weapons returning fire. For the moment d’Artagnan can’t do anything but wait and pray…

…that Ivan will protect Constance from Nikolai and Rochefort…

…that Nikolai will be too shocked by what Aramis had done to blame d’Artagnan…

…that the Russian thugs hadn’t heard what he’d said to Aramis…

…but mostly that his brothers hadn’t actually been stupid enough to come alone.

This is a lot to ask God for at the moment, or whoever else might be listening, but it’s out of his hands now, everything relies on Athos, Aramis and Porthos from now on. If they actually live, Constance will rail at him, Porthos will threaten to beat the daylights out of him, Athos will be furious and give him the silent treatment but Aramis…Aramis will understand what he’s done.

The entire building it echoing with gunfire and the sound of metal bullet casings hitting the ground, muffled curses in English and Russian and the snick of clips being changed and the empties tossed aside, it’s strange how focused he is on those sounds as bullets rain over his head and blood pools beneath his shoulder and he starts feeling lightheaded.

Shit, this wasn’t part of the plan! Passing out before Athos, Aramis and Porthos take down the bad guys is not supposed to happen! How will they know about Constance if he can’t tell them?

Just then, like a huge metal angel descending from heaven, d’Artagnan sees a helicopter appear in the wide open entry to the warehouse and he knows that the rest of the cavalry has arrived. 

The Russians scatter like roaches, cursing loudly, hissing to each other to run for the back entrance. They won’t die for Ivan’s father or his vendetta against Aramis and Athos, this is a job for them; aside from Nikolai, Ivan and maybe Yianna, none of them owe Yev any allegiance.

A second helicopter arrives and Ryder, Beetle and Mouse jump out and enter the building, none of them stopping to check if he’s alive even though he knows they want to; they move like dancers, agile and in sync, and spread out all over the warehouse, searching behind stacks of crates and he hears shots fired and comms crackling and he knows that the Rochefort and Nikolai have lost their muscle, either to bullets or handcuffs.

He must have lost consciousness for a moment because Aramis is shaking him and Porthos is growling at him and Athos is quietly asking him the usual question; _what were you thinking?_

“Athos,” he breathes, “Rochefort, Nikolai and Ivan...they have Constance, upstairs, go please!”

Porthos looks like he might faint and Aramis gives him a sad look like he’s delusional but Athos gets on comms at once.

“Ryder, we have a female hostage, second floor…”

“Two, a deaf girl, Yianna…”

“Two female hostages, one hearing impaired…” he says, “And three armed suspects, Rochefort and two Russians,” and he gets to his feet, hurrying behind Ryder up the stairs.

Aramis takes his jacket off and then his button down, leaving only his tee, and he wraps his shirt securely around d’Artagnan’s shoulder.

“You’ll be fine, it was a perfect shot,” he assures d’Artagnan with a shaky smile.

“I know, that’s why I told _you_ to do it, ‘e might have blown my ‘ead off,” d’Artagnan says, indicating the pale and sweaty Porthos.

“Constance? How?” the big man asks, shocked.

“Long story, but it’s really her, now someone help me up, Rochefort has her!”

Treville and Sylvie appear just as d’Artagnan is getting to his feet and Porthos steadies him with one arm loosely around his waist.

“Don’t ask,” Aramis tells them, shaking his head and preempting any questions. “Rochefort’s got two women hostage, one of them is Constance.”

Trip comes running towards them, face mask rolled back, and his expression is dire. He turns to Porthos and swallows. “Sir, they’re gone, Rochefort, the Russians and the two women, they’re gone.”

Blood loss plays absolutely no role in d’Artagnan’s epic face plant

To be continued.....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So nearly seven thousand words, I think another two sections to go and we're done. I have a favour to ask; I seem to have lost more than 2/3 of my readers or at least reviewers along the way, your critique is welcome, if you're reading this and there is a reason why the story no longer inspires you to review or check for updates I'll love to hear why. Have a great weekend and stay safe:)


	8. Chapter 8

Within minutes they’re all piling back into the helicopters and Athos is on comms, giving orders. 

Apparently they’d managed to escape the warehouse by going down a stairwell that leads from the first floor office to the underground car park that can’t be seen from inside or even outside of the building. According to Tiny, the car, a dark sedan, had come speeding up a ramp behind the warehouse, taking them by surprise and laying down heavy fire from an Uzi as it sped away. Fearing for the hostages, no one fired on the vehicle as it disappeared down a one lane road leading away from the port.

“They drove away in a dark blue Ford four-door sedan, I want every police officer within a fifty mile radius looking for that bloody car!” Athos commands. “Not one ship leaves the harbour, not even a dinghy, understood?”

Porthos had carried the unconscious d’Artagnan to the helicopter, the Met police Eurocopter they’d used to fly to Dover, and Aramis is now doing his best to revive him. Athos leaves the boy to the two of them and he focuses on the more pressing issue at hand. Treville is sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, passing Athos’ instructions to the pilot.

Sylvie and the two tactical units are in the other helicopter, a larger Royal Navy Merlin, co-opted specifically for this operation and they are all searching for that bloody car. Athos will never forgive himself if they’ve just miraculously gotten Constance back alive only to lose her again. At least now they know what Yev or at least Nikolai, was using against d’Artganan, and his bizarre behavior finally makes sense. They can’t have gotten far, he’s sure of that; with both helicopters searching the streets and the motorways and police on the ground setting up blockades around the immediate area Athos hopes to God they won’t lose them.

He has so many questions for d’Aragnan, who’d taken a swan dive as soon as they’d been told that Constance was gone. He can’t imagine what the two of them have been through in captivity, especially Constance, at least d’Artagnan doesn’t look any worse for wear. The last time Athos had seen him he’d been in much better spirits and was slowly on the mend from his accident. Fortunately, it appears as if he hasn’t been badly mistreated; there’s a bruise on his cheek and one on his jaw that look fresh so Athos can’t be sure if they’d happened when he’d passed out, although he was pretty sure Porthos had managed to catch him before he actually hit the ground. And then there’s the new gunshot wound he’s sporting in his left shoulder. He now knows there was a damn good reason he’d instructed Aramis to shoot him, without a distraction who knows what else might have happened, but that doesn’t mean that Athos is pleased about it.

“Athos, we’ve got them,” Treville shouts over the noise of the rotor, and at once, Aramis grabs his rifle. 

“Get me close enough to blow a tire!”Aramis shouts to the pilot but Athos baulks.

“It’s a two lane road, what if they spin out, hit another car or flip over?” Athos demands, fearful.

“If we get in close enough I promise you that won’t happen,” Aramis answers confidently. This is not his first rodeo and Athos trusts him implicitly.

The helicopter picks up speed and dips just as d’Artagnan is opening his eyes where he’s lying in Porthos’ lap. The first thing he says of course is ‘Constance’ and Athos hurriedly assures him that they’ve found her.

When Aramis is in position, Athos pulls the door back and the helicopter dips even lower and then steadies, and Aramis takes the shot.

As predicted, the car doesn’t spin out but it swerves into an embankment where it comes to a stop. The occupants are dragged out at gunpoint by Rochefort, including a young man he assumes is Ivan Athos notes puzzled, and the disgraced agent is forcing them forward into a grassy field. There’s no sign of Nikolai.

“Cut them off!” Athos roars to the pilot and instructs the others to check their weapons and prepare to jump out.  
The helicopter descends almost directly in front of the four people on the ground and everyone piles out, surging forward with weapons drawn, aside from d’Artagnan who is now slumped on the floor of the helicopter with his head resting on one of the seats, dazed; better for everyone, Athos thinks, instantly putting him out of his mind and following the others out into the empty field.

With nowhere to run, Rochefort stops and herds his three hostages, Ivan, Constance and Yianna beside him, a pistol in each hand, one pointed at his hostages and one at the agents.

“Where is Nikolai?” Athos asks as soon as the rotor is cut.

“He shot him and pushed him out of the car!” Ivan roars furiously.

“You have officially become as annoying at that little prick d’Artagnan,” Rochefort sneers at Ivan and shifts so his weapon is pointed directly at Constance and Athos literally feels all the blood drain from his head. Beside him, Treville, Aramis and Porthos, all armed and all with their weapons aimed directly at Rochefort are surely feeling exactly the same fear. They still can’t believe that Constance is alive, there’s no way that any of them will allow something happen to her now.

“You may get off a shot, two at most, but you’ll be dead before you even hit the ground, it’s over Rochefort, you got what you wanted, my Team has suffered, all of them, and so have I…now drop it, you can’t win this,” Treville tells him, taking one step forward.

“It’s over when I decide, not you,” Rochefort spits out, his face twisted and distorted with hatred. “This all started with you, Treville, but I will choose how it will end!”

“My father will rip you to pieces for this,” Ivan hisses, outraged, and that gets Rochefort attention and he moves the weapon in his left hand slightly from where it’s aimed at Constance to Ivan.

“Your father is an idiotic megalomaniac,” Rochefort scoffs. “I never wanted his money, you know, only his hired guns and a way back into the country! And you barely noticed that I had my own agenda because you were too busy making of a fool of yourself over this stupid girl, how many of you morons are in love with her anyway?” he asks scornfully. “You know what, you can have her… _catch_ ,” he sneers and he tips the gun slightly to the right again, aiming directly for Constance. 

“Rochefort!” Athos cries out instinctively, hoping to distract him, and Aramis uses that one second to surge towards Constance at the same moment as Ivan does. 

Athos sees Rochefort swing his gaze towards him, madness gleaming in his pale blue eyes and the disgraced agent gets off two shots, one from each of the weapons he’s holding, before he goes down in a hail of bullets fired by Porthos and Treville.

Athos feels his right leg buckle and he’s falling and when his knee impacts with the hard, packed dirt and the agony is blinding. He rolls over and he hears Treville yelling at Porthos to get on comms and call for a medevac. 

Seconds later the older man drops down beside him.

“Constance?” Athos asks, breathless.

“She’s fine, it seems that the bullet went straight through Aramis’s shoulder and hit the boy, Ivan in the chest,” Treville says, using his pristine white shirt to make a tourniquet for Athos’ thigh.

“Aramis? How bad?” Athos questions, heart stuttering.

“Not as bad as the boy, or you it seems, Porthos is with him, don’t worry! The bullet must have nicked an artery in your thigh, stop moving!” Treville commands, “or you will bleed out before help arrives.”

“And Constance is alright?” Athos insists breathlessly.

“Yes and so is Aramis! Stop worrying, Porthos is not letting anything happen to either of them, trust me lad. Now sit still!”

Athos swallows and tries to get a grip on the agonizing pain but it’s impossible, it feels like someone has taken an axe to his thigh and it’s excruciating. 

“Oh Jesus, d’Artagnan, we let him in the helicopter, alone…” Athos suddenly remembers, panicked.

“Yes we did, but he’s the most stubborn boy I’ve ever met and here he is,” Treville informs Athos with a pained grimace and Athos turns his head slightly to see d’Artagnan stumbling towards them.

 _Thank you God!_ Athos thinks and he waits for their wayward youngest to get closer so he can see for himself that he’s truly alright. 

No one is dying today, Athos thinks to himself firmly, no one.

He must have said it out loud though because Treville agrees.

“No, not today lad, you’re all going to be just fine,” the older man assures him calmly and Athos believes him, Treville has never once let him down…never.

 

*********************************************

 

D’Artagnan practically crawls out of the helicopter and stumbles towards the grisly scene, listing to one side from the pain in his shoulder and the blood loss. He’d managed to miss just about everything that had happened until the sound of shots being fired jerked him out of his stupor and he’d practically jumped out of his skin, and with the help of the pilot he gets to hit feet instead of falling out the door face first. At once he’s assaulted by the smell of discharged weapons and blood and the sound of Ivan choking and mumbling Constance’s name. D’Artagnan drags himself forward, not sure who is alive and who is hurt and who is dead, aside from Rochefort who, he thinks with satisfaction, is apparently very dead.

To his left is Athos, bleeding from a wound in his thigh and being tended to by Treville who calls out to him to check on Aramis. To his right is Constance, kneeling over Ivan, both hands pressing down on a wound in his chest, blood bubbling from the young man’s mouth and running down his chin. And although she’s unhurt she looks truly distressed as does Yianna, who is sobbing uncontrollably.

Just beyond them he finds Porthos, who has his hands clasped over a wound on Aramis’ shoulder that is probably nowhere near as neat as the one d’Artagnan is sporting and the big man is clearly distraught. D’Artagnan kneels down beside them, his limbs trembling from blood loss and fear, and he sees his Aramis’ eyes roving, unfocused and he slaps lightly as his face.

“Brother, hey...hey…look at me, you’re fine, it’s just a scratch,” d’Artagnan tells him with a shaky smile.

“Barely hurts,” Aramis whispers, but it comes out more like a croak. The injured man lifts his hand and d’Artagnan grabs it, squeezing. 

“Listen, brother, I need to tell you…” Aramis tries to say but he trails off abruptly and his eyes roll back and he’s out cold. 

“Aramis!” d’Artagnan cries out, shocked, but Porthos squeezes his wrist hard, leaving bloody fingerprints on the sleeve of his pale blue jumper.

“He’s fine, I promise, it looks messy but it’s not bad, check on Athos!” Porthos says firmly. D’Artagnan though is frozen to the spot, his gaze flitting from the unconscious Aramis to the dying Ivan, Constance now holding his hand in her bloody ones, speaking to him in soft, gentle tones as the light fades from the young man’s his eyes. 

“D’Artagnan! Go check on Athos!” Porthos instructs him again sternly. D’Artagnan nods and gets to his feet and he stumbles towards Athos who actually looks much worse than Aramis, and d’Artagnan doesn’t like the amount of blood on the ground or the waxy paleness of Athos’ face. Treville tersely confirms that the bullet has nicked an artery. The older man has both hands on Athos’ bleeding thigh and his expression is truly frightening.

“Now look who’s done something stupid,” d’Artagnan says lightly, doing a stellar job of hiding his fear.

“Learned from the best,” Athos huffs and d’Artagnan chuckles softly, holding his mentor’s hand tightly, and urging him to keep his eyes open. 

“Look, I know you’re probably furious and ready to have Sylvie transfer me to Blackpool or somewhere equally dreadful, but everything I did was to keep Constance alive and you and Aramis safe…,” he tells Athos meaningfully, squeezing his hand painfully hard to keep him alert. “Even if I have to be fired or arrested, I don’t care, just please say you’ll forgive me for lying and for everything that’s happened…” he continues sincerely, trying to keep Athos focused. The last person on the planet that d’Artagnan ever wanted to disappoint is Athos, the man he respects above all others and has guided him steadily from the first day they’d met; even when he’d known that the older man had his doubts about him all those years ago, Athos had never wavered, never given up on him, he’d simply continued to be patient and tolerant until their friendship became brotherhood and that something even deeper…something that only the five of them could ever understand.

“I’m not angry, child…I’m relieved and grateful,” Athos replies faintly, eyes unfocused and his breath is coming in short pants, and d’Artagnan is truly terrified. 

“Athos!” d’Artagnan demands, shaking his shoulders gently but his lids slip to half-mast before closing completely.

“Sir, what’s happening?” d’Artagnan ask Treville frantically.

“Hypovolemic shock, we need a drip, now, what the fuck is taking them so long?” the older man growls.

The sound of a helicopter rotor has them both turning around and to their massive relief they see that the med-evac has arrived. But when d’Artagnan turns back to Athos his brother is now limp and unresponsive, his face lax and his head has rolled to the side and Treville screams at him to begin chest compressions.

D’Artagnan scurries lower and starts unbuckling Athos’ Kevlar, his hands shaking so violently that he can barely grip the straps. 

“No time, lad, just do it,” Treville cries. D’Artagnan positions both hands over Athos’ chest and he presses, ignoring the searing pain in his shoulder and chest, counting out loud as he does so, mostly to keep himself centered. The paramedics arrive and they instruct him to continue while they unpack the defibrillator and then they push him aside, cut away Athos’ vest and clothes and apply the paddles. It takes three tries to get his heart started again and when they finally do d’Artagnan is so relieved he collapses backwards onto the ground, the impact jarring his shoulder wound and he just lays there, trying to catch his breath and wait for the piercing agony to pass as he listens to the paramedics talk to each other while they get Athos hooked up to a drip, wrap his thigh in a pressure bandage and call in his now stable – _thank fuck_ \- condition to the A &E.

Treville comes and sinks to his knees beside him, wiping the blood from his hands with some wet wipes he must have snagged from the medics. “He’s fine, stable now, don’t worry. We have to go lad, you need medical attention,” he’s telling him, but d’Artagnan feels too stunned to move.

“I…I’m fine, really, much better now…” he says, but his battered body doesn’t agree with his assessment and he momentarily sees stars. 

Treville grabs him gingerly by the shoulders and pulls him up until he’s sitting. “Can you stand?”

“Yes,” d’Artagnan assures him and the older man helps him to his feet and he wraps an arm around his waist and gently urges him forward towards the helicopter. D’Artagnan stumbles along, letting Treville take some of his weight, until Constance appears, her hands covered in Ivan’s blood and she looks at him, shocked and worried.

“Again?” she asks him, obviously frustrated but mostly concerned.

“It’s nothing, I promise, Aramis is a perfect shot…”

 _“What?”_ she demands. She looks as if she’s going to tear both him and Aramis each a new one but then her face softens and she lets out a long, tired breath.

“Come on, let’s get you fixed up,” Constance tells him gently, grimacing at her hands, and she allows Treville lead him towards the helicopter so she doesn’t get more blood all over him. 

“Aramis is conscious again, now I know why he was asking about _you_ ,” she says dully. “I had no idea, the security monitors were in the other room, we heard gunshots and then they dragged us down the stairs…” she adds but she trails off as she’s drowned out by the sound of the helicopters carrying the tactical teams and Sylvie and the second med-evac arrive. 

Porthos is yelling at the paramedics, giving them a bollocking for taking their time and he fusses like a mother hen as they work on Aramis and transfer him by stretcher to the helicopter. D’Artagnan sees the big man turn back and look at Constance shell-shocked, as if he’s just noticed her, and he takes a bottle of water from the medics and a towel and he helps Constance clean up before placing a quick kiss on the top of her head and jumping into the med-evac with Aramis, while Sylvie goes with Athos. 

One after another they take off, and Treville hustles d’Artagnan back into the helicopter and helps him get strapped in. Constance takes the distraught Yianna from Ryder and straps her in as well as Treville climbs into the co-pilot’s seat and tells the pilot to follow wherever the med-evacs are headed so that d’Artagnan can get patched up with the others.

“So you did something stupid again,” Constance says loudly, over the roar of the rotor. 

“No, it was actually very smart,” d’Artagnan informs her, matter of factly. “It only would have been stupid if I’d told Porthos to shoot me,” he tells her tiredly.

“WHAT?”

“Later, luv, please, I’m in pain…” he starts to say, his words slurring, but she’d having none of it.

“What am I going to do with you?” she moans.

D’Artagnan remembers that he still has her ring and slips his good right hand under his filthy jumper and pulls out the chain.

“Marry me?” he asks simply, holding the ring, still attached to the chain, in the palm of his hand.

“I’ll have to, it’s the only way to keep an eye on you!” she declares, but she’s smiling. So is Yianna, who’s been watching the exchange through teary eyes. 

“Brilliant, now I think I’m gonna pass out,” d’Artagnan says seriously, his head swimming, and before Constance can react, he does just that.

 

*********************************************

 

It takes Aramis a good ten minutes to remember where he is and why he feels like he’s been punched in the shoulder by an RPG.

Then it takes another ten or so for him to sit up fully and swing his legs over the side of the bed because he needs to piss like a racehorse.

He can see it’s dark out from the half-open shade on the window and the room is dimly lit by small fluorescent lights on either side of the bed. It’s a double room but thankfully he is alone. When he looks down he realizes that he’s wearing his own pyjamas, the old tee-shirt and faded bottoms he’s worn last night? Two nights ago? He really has no idea because he remembers very little after being shot. His left arm is immobilised by a foam sling contraption that is made up of a cuff on his wrist that goes around his neck and then that is strapped against his chest by another piece that goes around his torso and seems to be secured by Velcro. On the floor is a pair of hospital-issue slippers and he toes his feet into them and with the help of the drip-stand he gets off the bed.

He manages to get to the bathroom and relieve himself without any major mishaps and as he makes his way to the bed he hears a very familiar and very welcome voice in the corridor outside his room; Porthos.

He turns left instead of right and with the wheeled drip-stand in tow he shuffles out of his room into the chilly corridor where he finds Porthos, sitting on a long row of plastic chairs beside Constance, who has a sleeping d’Artagnan curled up close with his head on her lap.

“Why the fuck is he not in a bed where he belongs?” Aramis asks shocked and feeling horribly guilty; he’d shot the lad under very dubious circumstances and although it later became clear why, this wasn’t going away easily, not for him at least.

Startled, Porthos and Constance look up and it’s immediately apparent that neither of them are happy to see him.

“The question is what are you doin’ out of bed you idiot!” Porthos growls and jumps to his feet, closing the gap between them in two strides. 

“Aramis, you’ll hurt yourself,” Constance scolds worriedly and suddenly Aramis blinks and swallows, his breath hitching on a sob at the sight of her beloved face and he stumbles, Porthos catching him around his waist before he can fall.

“Constance,” he whispers brokenly, one tear then another rolling down his face and he’s weeping unashamedly. Porthos tightens his grip on him and pulls him in close and Aramis gratefully leans into his shoulder.

“Yeah, that’s about the same reaction I had, brother,” he says softly, his face in Aramis’ messy hair. 

“Why is that ridiculous boy not in a room?” Aramis asks, sniffling and pulling back slightly from Porthos’ solid hold.

“He’s been discharged and he wouldn’t go back to the hotel, not until you and Athos woke,” Constance tells him with a warm smile. “You know him, he’s got a mind of his own, doesn’t he?”

“And Athos?” Aramis asks, alarmed.

Porthos and Constance share a look and Aramis feels his stomach drop. 

“Well?”

“He’s just down the hall, but we can’t see him yet, he was in surgery for ages,” Constance says, biting her lip.

“And? Come on, out with it!”

“And his thigh was pretty mangled, they had to fly in a specialist micro-surgeon from Liverpool, it took hours to fix him up,” Porthos explains.

Aramis suddenly feels lightheaded but not from his injury, from fear. “Will he be alright?”

“Of course…but he's lost a lot of blood, so it was tricky for a while there…” Constance adds, obviously still frightfully worried.

“I don’t understand why d’Artagnan was released…I shot him,” he reminds them grimly.

Constance looks down at her fiancée and strokes his short hair lovingly, making Aramis want to start sobbing again. They’ve all been to hell and back, when will it end?

“There’s not much to be done for an injury like his, you know that. He was in surgery for literally ten minutes for debridement and they’ve got him on antibiotics and painkillers and he has to keep his arm in a sling. Thank God you’re a good shot, mate,” she says with crooked grin. “You’re fine, by the way, it’s just like you boys to act all stoic, like a piece of burning hot metal hadn’t ripped right through you.”

“Ugh, I could have done without that visual, my love. Regardless, thanks to your idiot boyfriend’s, oh sorry, fiancé’s completely insane plan, I’ll be having nightmares for months…I’ve never had to shoot someone I…care for…someone I _love_ ,” he corrects, feeling overwhelmed, “this is complete bollocks.”

“I agree,” Porthos says, “but honestly? I don’t think ‘e had any other choice, I would ‘ave told you to do the same thing.”

“Yes, well the two of you do share many of the same qualities,” Aramis says, pained. 

“Oi, I don’t think that’s a compliment,” Porths replies with a chuckle. “Come on, back to bed, you’re gettin’ out tomorrow provided you don’t do anything stupid.”

“Go on, luv,” Constance says softly, mindful of d’Artagnan, who is probably completely wrecked, but Aramis can’t take his eyes off Constance. Aside from the obvious weight loss she looks healthy and unharmed, at least physically. There will be plenty of time to deal with the rest and Aramis plans to be there for her, every step along the way.

Aramis relents and blows her a kiss, and he allows Porthos to help him back into his room and into bed. The big man covers him and then sits down in the chair beside him.

“So what happened after I was shot?” Aramis asks with a yawn.

“You weren’t shot, you threw yourself in front of a bullet,” Porthos reminds him. 

“Yes, that I did,” Aramis says. _And I’d do it again_ , he thinks to himself, _for any of you_.

“Constance was very upset about it, says she’s waiting for you to get better before she gives you the what for.”

Aramis sighs. “She’ll get over it.”

Porthos nods. “I’m not saying you didn’t do the right thing, mate, just that I thought you were gonna take the shot and instead you threw yourself on Constance, it was…weird.”

“I, um, I didn’t think, I just acted…oh my God, I’m turning into d’Artagnan,” he says with a weak chuckle. 

Porthos tries to smile but Aramis sees it doesn’t quite happen. “You scared the shit outta me, it’s a good thing it all worked out…”

“It did, and now will you tell me what happened after?”

“Well, Rochefort shot you and Athos…the bullet that went through your shoulder killed the boy, Ivan, by the way, he’d moved in front of Constance a second before you did,” Porthos explains grimly. “Rochefort was right, he had a thing for our girl, Constance told me ‘e’d kept her safe all this time…” he adds, clearly pained. A young man is dead, it doesn’t really matter whose son he was, he was probably not even twenty five, Aramis thinks sadly.  


“Brilliant, Yev will be back for more then.”

“Maybe…maybe not, we’ll worry about that tomorrow, today you need to rest, brother,” Porthos tells him firmly.

 _‘Brother’_ , it feels so fucking good to hear Porthos call him that. “Listen, I’m sorry that things have been tense between us,” Aramis begins tentatively but Porthos stops him.

“No, mate, this is on me, I’m the one who needs to apologize, ‘e pushed us… _hard_ , and I get it, you needed to distance yourself,” Porthos admits. “I had a lot going on as well and I’d wanted you there, with me, but later I accepted that I was being selfish.”

Aramis shakes his head. “No brother, it wasn’t selfish at all. We’re supposed to be there for each other, I should have seen that you and Athos were struggling as well, but that night…when he wrecked his bike and I realised that he could have died, that we almost lost him too…I couldn’t face any more loss, and I went kind of mental and I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” a voice says from the doorway and Aramis and Porthos turn to see d’Artagnan standing just inside the door, his left arm in a full sling, looking completely wrecked and somewhat sheepish.

“I um, I need to apologise, to everyone, actually, I was a complete wanker and I didn’t care about anything or anyone and you all paid the price for that. I nearly tore us apart,” he tells them sorrowfully.

Porthos rises and takes him by the elbow and gently pulls him to sit in the chair beside Aramis that he’s just vacated.

“Hey,” Aramis says to him simply, feeling unsteady.

“Are you alright? I’ve been worried sick,” d’Artagnan says in a rush.

“Me? I shot you!”

D’Artagnan grins. “Well, I told you to! And it worked…beautifully. You kept Constance safe, she told us that Nikolai and Rochefort were too shocked by whatever had happened in the warehouse below that she hadn’t been in any danger, not at that moment at least. Later, Rochefort and Nikolai argued in the car apparently. Nikolai wanted to ransom Constance for safe passage out of the country but Rochefort wanted to use her to lure in the rest of you to kill you. Rochefort just shot him, leaned over, opened the door and pushed him out, Ivan went nuts, Nikolai was like family, but Rochefort was threatening that Yianna would be next so there was nothing he could do at that moment…the rest we know.”

“I still shot you…” Aramis says weakly, “and before that I left you, and I’m very sorry for that, brother. You needed me and I wasn’t there for you.”

D’Artagnan shakes his head. “I was a twat, a childish, selfish twat and I deserved it, please can we just agree to put it aside? I’m tired, mate, and I just want us to be…to be ok again.”

“I agree with the boy, I need us to be ok again too, bein’ at odds with each other, it’s messed up, I can’t do that anymore,” Porthos tells Aramis meaningfully. “I was pretty ‘orrible to you when you got back…and I’m truly fuckin’ sorry for that...all these years, you’d never abandoned us, ever, it was always you, holdin’ us together, so yeah, can we just get back to the way things were? How they’re supposed to be?”

“Only if we agree that we were all at fault, including our ‘above reproach’ and mostly steady brother Athos as well, he played his part too,” Aramis reminds them cheekily. 

“Yeah, plus he never bought _me_ a laptop,” Porthos replies with mock affront and d’Artagnan laughs. 

“Oi, I sent it back, mate, it was a nice gesture but Constance,” d’Artagnan says, holding out one hand palm up in front of him, “and laptop,” he continues, flipping his left hand carefully in the sling like he’s weighing the two, “well let’s just say the laptop wasn’t doing much to take the pain away,” he adds, his voice hitching ever so slightly as he remembers.

“Where is our girl, anyway? I haven’t gotten my hugs and my kisses yet,” Aramis complains, trying to lighten the mood.

“They let her go in to see Athos, that’s what I’d come to tell you, he’s awake…but in a lot of pain though so he’s pretty loopy with the good stuff.”

“When can we see him?” Porthos asks immediately.

“Not yet I’m afraid. Constance said she was his sister, but they asked for identification, to which she flashed the temporary government ID that Sylvie issued her, along with a pretty scary look and the nurses backed off. It was hysterical, Constance is not a woman you want to mess with.”

“Amen to that,” Aramis agrees fondly. He feels a sudden flare of intense pain and he grunts and turns to Porthos. “Does this thing have a pain button or whatever they call it?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Porthos replies, but d’Artagnan gets up slowly and fiddles with it, sending the pain medication flooding his veins.

“Oi, don’t look smug that you knew that, it’s not a skill you twat, it’s a sign that you’re an idiot,” Porthos scolds d’Artagnan sternly and Aramis laughs, a proper, chest rumbling guffaw that makes his entire torso ache but he doesn’t care. They are alive, together and mostly in one piece. He’ll take that for now and thank God for his blessings.

“Sleep now brother,” d’Artagnan encourages, squeezing his right hand, “and tomorrow you’ve got to tell me all about Cyprus; did you go to Ayia Napa? Were the girls really half-naked in the clubs?”

“No, I didn’t and I’m going to tell Constance that you asked,” Aramis replies, pretending to be offended on her behalf. “I’ll tell you all about beautiful Paphos, you can take Constance there on honeymoon…and the people were mostly clothed…” he adds, trailing off, feeling utterly and completely exhausted.

D’Artagnan chuckles and bends forward and presses a brotherly kiss to his forehead. He leans in a bit closer to his ear and whispers, “By the way, I love you too.”

Aramis is half asleep at that moment, but he’s sure he’s heard right, which means the little shit had been awake when he’d found the three of them earlier out in the corridor.

 _Just you wait_ …Aramis thinks fondly, before he falls into a much needed and heavily medicated slumber.

 

Next up....

We see what happened to Athos, and all the rest of the players of the series make appearances, unanswered questions get answered and loose ends tied up. So one more chapter and then the epilogue, which is one of my favourite chapters btw;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I’m very sorry if I’ve offended anyone from Blackpool. I’ve visited over 30 UK cities and towns and it was the only place that I have first-hand knowledge of that I think d’Artagnan would hate to live in. Apologies if I’ve hurt anyone’s feelings, it was used as plot device, pure and simple.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

 

“…and then a purple spotted dog showed up and arrested everyone…”

“Hmn? Really?”

“Athos, you’re not paying any attention to me are you?” Constance complains.

“Actually, I am, just not to what you’re saying.” He reaches out for her hand, holding it in his, the wonder of her being alive and sitting beside him still something that hasn’t fully sunk in yet.

Constance of course is a clever girl and she understands and she pulls his hand up to her lips and places a gentle kiss on the back of it. “I’ve missed you all so much. I wasn’t mistreated, but it was still pretty awful,” she admits.

“I can imagine and when you want to talk about it I’m here, waiting. Do me a favour though, don’t ask him to tell you too much of what happened…after, if you want to know either Porthos or I will be glad to fill you in, just don’t ask d’Artagnan or even Aramis, they were both suffering in their own way it’s best if they put it behind them.” 

Constance nods. “I know, he told me some of it and then made it clear that he didn’t want to talk about anything else, not now at least. I um, I had to have Sylvie call my mum and d’Artagnan’s mum, to explain first, because I knew if I rang the shock might be too much, hearing my voice when they thought I was gone. Porthos called Ellie of course but Marie was very distraught, it was hard for her to accept, someone coming back from the dead and all that.”

“Understandable, we are adults and it still seems impossible,” Athos says quietly. “You will find some things at home…altered, and quite a bit of missing crockery,” he adds with a grimace. “Also your bed hadn’t been slept in for a while, he…couldn’t.”

“Porthos told me that, I know I’ll have to be patient, he’s… _d’Artagnan_ , he is what he is, reckless, passionate, loyal to a fault, and very, very volatile, I knew what I was getting myself into from the start. I know I wavered a bit…that one time,” she says, embarrassed, “but it was a mistake, being without him was difficult, then and now. With d’Artagnan you’re either all in or you walk away…and I’m never doing that again…ever.”

Athos feels his heart stutter. “It’s funny, I feel exactly the same way…in a strictly platonic, brotherly manner of course,” he adds with a crooked grin. “Having him in my life has been just as rewarding as it’s been painful, but I can’t imagine what my life would be like would be like without him…aside from very boring.”

Constance laughs softly and to Athos it’s like the most beautiful music he’s ever heard. 

“Treville has been out of his mind by the way, I’ve never seen him like this,” Constance informs him. “Lemay came yesterday and forcibly took him to eat and sleep, he was like a zombie.

“It’s odd, Treville is the only living relative I have but I’ve always looked at him as my boss, not as my father’s cousin, it’s easy to forget that we are related when he’s giving orders and telling us off,” Athos says with a chuckle.  
“But he’s been like a father to me, I guess I hadn’t realised how much that meant to him as well.”

“Trust me, mate, he went mental when they told us we had to wait for a surgeon, he’s always so calm and reserved, it was pretty frightening!”

“Speaking of that, just how bad is it, Constance? No one has been very…forthcoming?”

Constance drops his hand gently back onto the bed and fidgets and Athos _knows_ , he can read her like a book and she’s not being particularly…subtle.

“Even with rehabilitation you will always have a slight limp…I’m so sorry, Athos…”

Athos nods, he feels oddly calm, and a lot less concerned than he thought he would be. “Go on.”

“Well, you needed an arterial graft, a skin graft and there is muscle and nerve damage. The bullet didn’t pass right through, it sort of gouged out a pretty big gash…I don’t know all the details but the specialist predicts you will have a slight limp. That’s not guaranteed of course, but he told me to expect that would be the outcome.”

Athos raises one brow. “He told _you_?”

“Well I told him I’m you sister…which I am of course!”

“Indeed you are. So it appears as if I will look like the titled lord of the manor after all, sporting a cane and with a permanently disgruntled and pained expression on my face,” he says drily, but honestly, if that’s the worst outcome of this whole mess Athos truly does not care. “You said Aramis and d’Artagnan will both make a full recovery, correct?”

“Yes, it’s just you who will need a nursemaid and my fiancé has already signed himself up, said he owes you a lifetime of looking after. And apparently we missed their big bonding moment, the pair of them with Porthos, swapping apologies and soppy confessions, I’m actually glad I wasn’t there, they probably needed to do that alone, I’m under the impression that the three of them had given each other quite a bit of grief, in both the literal and the figurative sense.”

“They were all at odds with each other in some manner or another…and quite annoyed with me for what they considered…coddling, but no apologies will be forthcoming, you can tell them that for me.”

“Tell us yourself, you tosser,” Porthos says loudly with mock affront and Athos watched the three of them come barreling into his room as if this wasn’t a hospital with visitation rules. They look horrible to say the least, tired, battered, and of course Aramis and d’Artagnan are both sporting slings on their left arms, but they are a sight for sore eyes for sure.

“Oi, you’ll get us thrown out,” d’Artagnan hisses good-naturedly to Porthos, “and then Sylvie, who has been waiting patiently to see Athos won’t be allowed in,” he says with trademark d’Artagnan cheek.

“You’re not too old for a spanking…or at least you don’t act old enough to avoid one, just remember that…” Athos tells him fondly. The teasing about him and Sylvie has gone from sly innuendos to blatant ribbing but Athos can’t be annoyed, not now especially. He is so grateful that they are actually all together in one room after so many months of grief and pain that he does something very uncharacteristic; he starts to cry.

Aramis, Porthos and d’Artagnan are so shocked they just stare dumbly, but Constance sits on the bed beside him gingerly and wraps her arms around him. “I know, it’s a lot to take in,” she whispers, “but we’re ok, we’ll be fine.”

There’s a discreet knock at the open door and Constance pulls back slowly. Athos swipes at his eyes and clears his throat when he realises, speak of the devil, it’s Sylvie.

“Can I join the party?” she asks tentatively and there is a lot of fussing and Aramis… _always the gentleman_ …Athos thinks, pulls another chair close for her to sit.

“We need to go anyway, Ellie and Marie are here and they’re waiting very patiently to see Constance,” Aramis informs them and Constance looks like she might start crying as well. One by one they shuffle close and Athos gets a sloppy kiss from Aramis, a contrite puppy-dog look and a one-armed hug from d’Artagnan and a mighty but gentle squeeze from Porthos who also looks close to tears.

Constance kisses the top of his head and she follows behind the others to find Porthos’ anxious family.

“They are quite the…you know what? I don’t even know how to describe them, they can be overwhelming,” she says, taking a seat beside him.

Athos chuckles “That is an excellent way to describe them.”

Sylvie smiles shyly. “You’re lucky though, all of you, there’s a lot of love there, it’s very obvious.”

“You’re right and I’m truly grateful, it’s just them and Treville, I um...I lost the rest of my family years ago,” he admits, surprising the both of them that he just shared that very personal detail.

“I’m sorry to hear that, but it looks like your cup is overflowing, regardless?”

Athos nods slowly. “You’re right, it is,” he thinks fondly. “But I think, there’s always room for more?”

_WHAT??? Did he actually just say that out loud?_

Sylvie grins. “Well, that was unexpected, I thought I’d have to make the first move.”

“I’m old-fashioned,” he deadpans, trying to tamp down his nervousness, “so it had to be me.”

Sylvie lifts one brow. “Not too old fashioned I hope? I run Counter-terrorism after all, I’m not much of a girly-girl, you’re more likely to find a gun than a lipstick in my purse…and of course I’ve been told I have a big mouth?”

“You’ve just described Constance to a T, and I adore her so no, none of that offends me, as a matter of fact I don’t think I’d ever date any other kind of woman again, so if you don’t mind the cane that I’m told is going to be my newest fashion accessory, I don’t mind the Glock in your Gucci.”

Sylvie barks out a very unladylike laugh and Athos feels warmth spread through his chest. “Mate, if I hadn’t once arrested a counterfeiter I wouldn’t even know what a Gucci is…that’s not going to be a problem is it?”

“No, a relief,” he says honestly, glad to be done with that part of his life anyway.

“Good, now that we’ve gotten all of that awkward stuff out of the way, how about I read to you, a distraction from the pain, the lines around your mouth give you away. I’ve brought a book of feminist poetry with me.”

Athos groans. “You’re kidding right? My, um, extreme dislike of feminist poetry won’t be a deal-breaker I hope?”

“I’m messing with you, it’s a book of poetry but all genres, not just feminist. Bu still, you do look like you’re in a lot of pain, should I get a nurse?” she asks worriedly.

“No, I control it myself, I’m just trying to avoid too much, you know how it is…”

“Yes, I know what you mean. Alright then, relax, close your eyes and I promise no feminist poetry today, wouldn’t want to scare you off on our first date now would I?”

“A piss-poor first date I’d say, but the company is lovely…more than that, actually,” Athos tells her meaningfully.

He can see this working; Sylvie is everything he’d _never_ imagined he’d want in a woman and it took a massive betrayal to open his eyes and look beyond the glamorous clothes and the kitten heels. Sylvie is beautiful, successful, intelligent and tough as nails and this is what he wants, probably what he’s always wanted, but he’d been young and stupid when he’d met Anne and been fooled and dazzled by her exotic beauty and her duplicitous charm. Today, he wouldn’t give a woman like Anne a second glance, but hindsight and all that, and there is nothing to be done about the past. Athos can look to the future though and he feels hopeful that Sylvie will be a part of it.

He listens as she reads, comforted by the sound of her voice and by the fact that his brothers and his beloved sister are mostly well and whole and he closes his eyes and lets himself drift off peacefully, the pain in his thigh hardly a bother beside all his other blessings.

 

**********************************************

 

For Porthos, the reunion with the family is more emotional than it has ever been at any time before. That’s because they have so much more to be thankful for this time; it’s not just a mission successfully completed and the lot of them back home safe; the return of Constance to the fold has brought more joy the them than any other single event that Porthos can remember, well aside from the birth of his daughter of course, because that can’t be compared to anything.

The hospital they’ve currently commandeered is in Ashford, about 20 miles from Dover, and the only one in the area that has a specialist trauma unit. Although d’Artagnan and Aramis will be fine to travel by road in a day or two, Athos needs a bit longer and he will then be transferred by helicopter to the MOD’s facility in London where all three of them will need to be checked out regardless, to be signed off for leave or cleared for duty, whichever the case will be. 

Porthos is seriously considering suspending d’Artagnan for at least a month for his antics, but if he does he will feel obligated to go into detail in his report, including the fact that the idiot had offered to trade himself to Yevgeny Grigorievich in return for the safety of the others, and that would get him fired, blacklisted from law enforcement and possibly even arrested. 

They’ve already decided amongst themselves to tell the entire truth at the debrief but leave that small detail out of the equation since no one outside of the five of them actually knows about that aside from possibly the two thugs currently in detention (who barely speak English and are claiming they are warehouse guards and know nothing), and Porthos decides to wait until he can discuss it with Athos and hear his opinion before he makes a decision regarding a suspension.

D’Artagnan needs to be punished though, in some way or another, because Porthos cannot and will not show him favouritism, if he does it will damage his credibility as well as his personal code of honour. Desk duty might be a fitting punishment, since the fool is like a toddler and can barely sit still for a briefing, let alone an eight hour shift, and he’s leaning towards that, with the excuse that he behaved recklessly by suggesting Aramis shoot him.

As for Aramis, well since he answers to Athos and Treville, Porthos doubts there will be repercussions, especially since it’s not the first time an Agency operative has been forced to do something similar in a tight spot. Besides, it’s looking more and more like Aramis may be hanging up his guns for good, he’s been rumbling about it since Constance had been thought dead and over the past three days he’s brought it up repeatedly. Porthos doesn’t blame him; Aramis had served ten years in the military before Team 3 and he can see that his brother has become weary of the death and destruction that comes with their particular job description. At the moment, he is using an empty lounge to FaceTime Reina back in London, and Porthos is very happy that it appears as if the two of them have become quite attached to each other.

Fortunately for everyone, especially the injured, Lemay has swooped in along with Porthos’ personal assistant Ben and all the paperwork and the logistics have been handled by the two of them. Porthos’ Units have gone back to London and are on leave for a week, Ivan’s and Rocheforts’ bodies have been sent to London for forensics and pathology, and arrangements have been made for all of them at a hotel five minutes away from the hospital. 

Nikolai’s body has not been found. Local police are still searching the area where Constance told them he’d been pushed out of the car by Rochefort, but aside from some blood, there's no sign of the missing thug. Porthos suspects that Grigorievich has a vast network of ‘helpers’ in the UK aside from those arrested at Gatwick following d’Artagnan’s intel. Treville has also shared his suspicions about a traitor in their ranks with the French since he is sure that someone was helping Rochefort get in and out of the country. Porthos doesn’t care about that whatsoever, let the French deal with their own problems, but he knows that Nikolai and Yev are still possibly a threat to them. Treville has assured him though that they will be dealt with; he’s given that part of the case over to MI6 who have the ability to operate outside of the UK with more ease than the Agency or Counter-terrorism do and Porthos truly hopes that it gets wrapped up quickly.

The last piece of the puzzle surprisingly came from Ivan. He’d told Constance weeks ago what Athos, Aramis and Porthos had already suspected, that it was Rochefort who had approached his father and not the other way around. Even though he never told her what her kidnapping was all about and why they’d targeted Team 3 in France, he did complain vehemently about the fact that Nikolai and his father had trusted Rochefort. It had been obvious to Constance all along that Ivan was nothing like Nikolai or his mysterious father and was not cut out for whatever they’d gotten him into. They’d all felt a twinge of sadness at the boy’s death, especially since he’d died trying to keep Constance safe.

It’s past two in the afternoon and with Athos in Sylvie’s very capable hands, Porthos decides he’ll round up everyone and take them out to the all-day breakfast place two streets down. He pulls out his phone and texts Ben as well, and tells him to meet them there with Treville and Lemay; the happy giggling coming from his little girl where she’s sitting on Constance’s lap just a few feet away has put Porthos in a celebratory mood and a huge, noisy lunch is just what they all need to start to put this ordeal behind them. 

He tells everyone to get their coats on and gets up and knocks on the glass of the little lounge where Aramis has ensconced himself and makes a gesture for him to finish and come out. Aramis gives him an exaggerated grimace but a thumbs up; he’ll have plenty of time to see Reina when they get back to London, especially since he’s still officially on leave. Aramis comes out to the reception area where the unrestrained group is talking loudly and laughing, and he takes Marie by the hand.

“I need someone to get me safely across the road,” Aramis tells her seriously and the little girl looks chuffed and nods enthusiastically. 

“I want pancakes,” d’Artagnan announces and Constance teases that he’ll probably order everything on the menu.

Ellie takes Porthos’ hand in hers and they follow the others out the front entrance of the hospital and onto the pavement. “You alright, luv?” she asks warmly, the smile back on her face after months of sadness and grief.

“Of course, we’re all together again and there’s waffles within striking distance,” he teases, feeling lighter than he has in ages. “And I’m taking two weeks off, decide where you’d like to go.”

Ellie frowns. “But Marie has school, and I’ve got a project to finish…”

Porthos grins. “Marie has grandparents and those three to take care of 'er,” he says, indicating Constance, d’Artagnan and Aramis. “And you can finish your project as soon as we get back, we need some time away, just the two of us, what do you say?”

Ellie smiles big. “Alright, I’m in...how about Cornwall?”

Porthos groans. “Pensioners and antique shops?”

“Who cares, I don’t intend to leave the hotel very much, how about you?” she asks cheekily.

Porthos laughs, a loud hearty guffaw that has others turning to look back at them oddly. “Sound like a plan, darlin’,” he tells her and leans down to press a kiss on her forehead. “Sounds like a perfect plan.”

 

********************************************************************************************************************

 

Epilogue - Two months later

 

They’re still taking the piss out of Aramis’ awful karaoke rendition of _‘You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’_ when d’Artagnan unlocks the door to their flat, and tries to disarm the alarm only to find that it’s not set…or someone has disabled it. 

He pushes Constance away from the door at once and pulls his weapon from his shoulder holster, hissing at her to run.

His girl gives him a look that could freeze vodka and she pulls her gun from the holster strapped to her lower back. They silently agree for him to go first though, simply because arguing while there is an intruder in their flat could get them both killed.

Safeties off their weapons, d’Artagnan kicks the door open and Constance flicks the light, and they come face to face with their worst nightmare; Yevgeny Grigorievich.

He’s sitting on their sofa, relaxed and apparently unarmed, but Nikolai, obviously _not_ dead, and another man have their weapons pointed at the couple and d’Artagnan hisses to Constance in Arabic to run.

“I’m not here to hurt you stupid boy, calm yourself,” Yev tells him in heavily accented English. He then indicates that Nikolai and the other man should put down their weapons and they both stoically place them on the coffee table and step back.

“You’re not allowed in the UK, I am obligated to arrest you for illegal entry…and him,” d’Artagnan says, indicating Nikolai, “for kidnapping,” he adds steadily, his Glock trained on Yev. Constance of course has not run as he instructed her to; instead she takes a few steps into the flat, weapon steady, looking a lot more composed than d’Artagnan is feeling.

“Yes, yes,” the Russian replies, dismissing d’Artagnan as if he was some irritating pest. “I am here to see her, not argue with you. I wanted to meet the girl my son died for,” Yev informs them calmly, not a flicker of emotion on his handsome face. 

D’Artagnan can see where Ivan had gotten his good looks from; Yev is a very striking man, even into his sixties he looks like he could have been an actor or even a model in his younger days. But the coldness in his eyes ruins the overall picture and d’Artagnan isn’t fooled for even one second by his face and his fancy clothes; this man is a killer and a kidnapper, no matter how he is packaged.

“Why? Constance is not to blame for what happened to Ivan, it was Rochefort’s bullet that killed him. He was a mad dog, he couldn’t be trusted, I’m shocked that you’d put so much faith in him!” d’Artagnan snarls, ready to do whatever is necessary to keep Constance safe; he’ll not go through that hell again, he vows to himself.

“I know that you idiot, I know everything that happened and how it happened!” Yev hisses, losing some of his calm façade. “And I know that my stupid son jumped in front of her to save her. I’m not here for retribution, I just want to understand why,” he adds dully.

Constance inches forward, coming to stand beside d’Aragnan and he’s honestly not surprised to see tears in her eyes; he was there, he saw what happened and he knows that she’d taken it hard regardless of what had preceded that moment.

“Your son was a kind boy who had no business mixed up in all of this,” Constance tells him shakily, tears rolling down her face. “And he was very honourable. More than once he’d kept me safe from those thugs you’d hired,” she admits and d’Artagnan sees red; some of them are still alive and in custody he remembers, and he puts that away for later, he’ll find a way to deal with them accordingly.

“Rochefort hired them, not me! And Ivan insisted on staying in the house with you and not with Nikolai as I’d instructed, apparently he wanted to be near you,” Yes asserts, leaning forward on the sofa and the two men beside him tense visibly.

“I’m truly sorry for your loss, your son had become attached to me at some point, but I promise you I didn’t encourage it; I was engaged…am engaged,” she corrects, “and I never led him on. You can ask him,” she indicates Nikolai “or Yianna, although not face to face, she’s under our protection now," Constance discloses, her tone carrying a clear warning.

“I never hurt Yianna, if she told you I did she was lying,” Yev replies blandly.

Constance shakes her head. “No she didn’t, only that she is afraid of you; she felt that because you saved her life that you expected things from her that she’s unwilling to participate in.

Yev scoffs. “I was very fond of her mother, we grew up in the same town, I would have never hurt either of them. Yianna was extremely grateful that I saved her from a Moscow brothel and she thought she owed me something. She stayed on at my house, cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, and looking after Ivan and Katerina when they were with me. She followed Ivan here on her own, you know, she felt obligated to keep an eye on him. If she thinks that I had other plans for her she is mistaken because she is traumatised. The fact that she is deaf caused many misunderstandings, despite my best efforts to assure her that I wanted nothing from her.”

“This is all very interesting,” d’Artagnan tells both Constance and Yev, “but the truth remains that Constance tried to save Ivan, she didn’t leave his side, not even with our friends gravely injured. When there was nothing more she could do she held his hand until he passed so he wouldn’t die alone,” d’Artagnan adds quietly. The memory irks him but the truth is Ivan didn’t deserve to die like that and certainly not alone.

“I know all of this, boy, I simply wanted to see this woman who’d inspired my son to take a bullet for her, nothing more, truly,” Yes insists, standing and buttoning his suit jacket. “And to thank her personally for not abandoning him. If I was a more vindictive man I might have had you both killed; after all you did double-cross me,” he reminds d’Artagnan. “But I know that Rochefort’s madness is to blame for everything that went wrong, as I know my son’s character, his mother raised him to be kind and honourable and in the end that’s what he died for." Yev's face sags for the first time and d’Artagnan finally sees the grieving father hidden under the slick façade.

“What about Athos and Aramis? How can we make this vendetta go away for good?” d’Artagnan ventures. He knows he’s reaching but why the hell not?

“Simple. Me and my associates walk out that door and you forget we’ve ever met and I, in turn, will forget your two friends. I think that’s fair. It’s much better than the alternative; these two men are very dangerous, boy, I promise you that. Even unarmed the two of you will be dead in seconds if you don’t like my offer.” Now that’s the Yev from Sylvie’s files, d’Artagnan thinks to himself, despite the bespoke suit and the handsome face, this man is definitely a killer.

“How can I know you’re not lying?”

Yev scowls. “Because my word is my guarantee! I’ve never broken it, and I never will.” He turns to Constance and his expression softens slightly. “Just the fact that you didn’t abandon Ivan means that I am in your debt. Accept my word that your friends won’t be harmed by me or mine as repayment of this debt and let us walk out that door.”

D’Artagnan is torn; letting them go could cost him his career and Constance hers of course, but Athos and Aramis’ safety is much more important to him, to both of them. When Constance nods at him, they retreat, stepping sideways towards the kitchen and they allow the three men to walk towards the half-open door, weapons still on the coffee table.

“I um…I told him I loved him,” Constance confesses, addressing Yev but she’s looking at d’Artagnan guiltily, “as he was dying, he kept saying he loved me and I was heartbroken,” she continues, fresh tears spilling. “So I told him I loved him too, it made him smile and I felt justified, he slipped away easier I think because of it.”

Yev looks shaken. “Thank you,” the Russian tells her quietly. “Maybe you will also pray for his soul,” he adds, and then the three of them depart and close the door behind them.

D’Artagnan rushes to lock and bolt the door and tosses his Glock aside, pulling Constance into his embrace. He takes her gun from her hand and tosses it on the sofa with his and clings to her like a man drowning.

“I’m so sorry about all of this, I can’t believe they got in here, we should have never come back home so soon, I should have known this could happen...”

“Enough, d’Artagnan, you couldn’t have known, this isn’t your fault! And I’m fine, truly, especially since it looks like this is finally over for good, no more worrying about Yev or Nikolai,” she tells him firmly, pulling back from him slightly. “And it’s a good thing too, because there’s something we need to talk about.”

D’Artagnan freezes. “What’s wrong?” 

Constance doesn’t reply, instead she begins collecting weapons, theirs and the ones that the Russians have left behind and she removes the clips and places them all on the dining table, before she returns and pulls him onto the sofa. D’Artagnan lets her manhandle him until she has him where she wants him, lying in her lap, and she buries one hand in his newly-grown hair.

“So…I was kidnapped right, and away for two months, yeah?”

“Yes?”

“And then after everything that happened in Dover it was days before we came home and got back into a routine…”

“Constance, you’re scaring me…” d'Artagnan says, heart still pounding from their encounter with Yev.

She smiles, a small secret grin that calms him down considerably. “Don’t be scared, just listen. So anyway, we came home right and of course we went at it like bunnies because it had been ages, right? And then…well now, it’s what, another two months since we’ve been home…”

“And?” he demands.

“And I realised that I had gone two months as a hostage without the pill, then forgot to start it when we got home and we never use condoms so….guess what?”

She doesn’t have to say anything else, her expression, the reason she wanted him there, laying on her lap, close to her belly, he can’t help it, he starts to cry.

“Oi, what’s with the waterworks, this is a happy occasion, innit?”

“A baby!! Oh my God Constance we’re going to be parents!! Bollocks, we have to get married, like tomorrow, because otherwise our kid will be illegitimate or…something?

“No, you fool, our child will be perfectly legitimate and to be honest I’m not ready to plan a wedding, even a small one, we can do that after the baby is born.”

D’Artagnan groans. “You explain that one to my mother because I _can’t_ , she from a small village in Italy, remember? She’ll kill me!”

“No she won’t, I’ll speak to her don’t worry.”

“A baby!” he says again, feeling awed and scared and thrilled…and then he remembers the guns on the table, the Russian mobsters and the Kevlar hanging in their closet and he sits up abruptly. “I’m going to quit, find a proper job, something safer and with less…injuries,” he says weakly, feeling sick to his stomach. Can he ever really give this up?

“That’s up to you, luv, I don’t want to influence you in any way.”

“And you? Please don’t tell me you’re still going back to Team 3 when your leave is up?”

“Technically it’s not your decision, mate, but no, I’m not...I’m going to work for Athos at Whitehall. Louis has made his temporary position permanent and I’ll be in charge of IT for all the Agency Teams. This way there will be no chance of any future leaks because I will be the only person with access, well aside from Athos and Treville of course. I’m excited actually, and I get to keep my security clearance and my gun,” she informs him cheekily.

“When did this all happen and why didn’t I know? You didn’t tell Athos you were pregnant before you told me did you?” he asks suspiciously.

“You really are an idiot aren’t you? Of course I didn’t…only Aramis.”

D’Artagnan lets out an indignant squeak. “I’ll kill you!”

“Your face…priceless! And this just happened yesterday and I wanted to tell you everything together. I haven’t told anyone I’m pregnant by the way, not Aramis, not even Ellie, you’re the first to know, I swear. Anyway, since Athos isn’t going back and Aramis has no idea what he wants to do I’m done with Team 3, it’s time we all are actually. It was four and a half good years that we can all be very proud of but it’s time to move on.”

“So what will _I_ do? Go work corporate or something…I guess? I’ll have to cut my hair again, wear a suit...we’ll need more money, babies are expensive, they need food and clothes and toys and doctors…and other things and…”

“Oh my God, enough with the verbal diarrhoea, mate, we’ll be fine, we make enough money to raise a child, I promise, plus I’m sure both your mum and mine will be spoiling him or her rotten so it will all work out. And you don’t have to leave your job at Counter-terrorism, I know you love it, you just need to be less…reckless?”

D’Artagnan nods vigorously. “Yes, of course, much less reckless,” he agrees, but then he frowns. “Still, saving lives is my job, I can’t just say ‘sorry luv, won’t be helping you escape that terrorist today because I have a baby on the way’ can I?”

Constance bursts out laughing. “Can’t you do your job, save lives and not be an idiot? Thousands of men and women in law enforcement manage to do so, every day.”

“I’ll do my best, I promise,” he assures her and lays his head back on her lap and places one hand on her stomach.

“Lower, mate, that’s my lunch in there,” she teases.

“A baby,” he says for at least the third time in wonder. “Um, wait, can we have sex? We don’t want to…damage it or anything?”

“You’ve got five A*s - one of them in Biology - and a First Class Honours degree from UCL and you have to ask that question? Of course we can have sex! Why? Are you suddenly inspired to make another baby? That can’t happen by the way,” she teases him.

“Brilliant, um, yeah, that's great, it’s just that would drive me mad, all those months without touching you, and I’ve noticed that your breasts are looking a bit…fuller?” he says, feeling heat pool in his groin.

“Are you saying I look fat?” Constance demands, outraged, and her expression is more effective than a cold shower.

“What? No, of course not, just that now that I know, I feel like I can see the signs?” d'Artagnan says innocently and her face relaxes considerably.

Bloody hell, nine months…well seven since she’s already two months on, _thank God_ …of hormonal Constance may just be d’Artagnan’s most difficult mission yet.

But also the most wonderful, and he thinks happily, and he lets all his worries fall away. It’s time for their happy ending, they’ve worked for it, wept for it and bled for it, they deserve it don’t they?

 

Fin….for now….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes I went there, d’Artagnan and Constance have a bun in the oven, but mostly because I'm in the process of writing one last story in this verse and that little baby is *gasp* plot device, poor thing:)
> 
> A few very important details about Sylvie’s agency and her subordinates that need to be noted, with respect to gender and the carrying of firearms;  
> The Units that Porthos commands directly are a part of Special Operations (based on facts) which are elite units within the UK police, some are very public and some top-secret like Porthos’ people (more fictional than fact), who don’t belong to a particular branch like other Spec Ops Units do, for example the MOD Police (actual unit); they are discreet, highly trained and sent where they are needed and are of course, the most elite of all. Also, they are not in any way regular police Counter-terrorism officers like you would see in the UK show ‘Line of Duty’ where they are made up of men _and_ women and their kit is kept in their lockers and their weapons are checked in and out (based on fact). Like Elvis in ‘Our Girl’ (I hate that I just did that, I’m trying so HARD to keep him separate from d’Art LOL) when he was loaned out to Special Ops in series 1, Porthos’ Units are armed at all times, keep their kit and weapons at home, and are all ex-military which brings me to the next issue, which is gender. 
> 
> All of Porthos’ four-man Units are men only because up until very recently women have not been allowed to serve in combat roles in the UK and even today only in some areas of the military. So, I apologise to my female counterparts who may have been a bit irked by the fact that Ryder, Trip, Tiny et al are all blokes but it’s simply because they are all ex-SAS, Royal Navy etc. Now, I could have ignored the facts and all that but I am a freak when it comes to details, like what helicopter they would be in, who carries what weapon etc., and even though some details are either impossible to confirm due to secrecy and others have too many opinions (the medical stuff mostly!) I am trying my best to keep this as real as possible. So, taking all of this into consideration I decided that Sylvie would be the BOSS of ALL of them, and make every last one of these ex-bad-ass soldiers have to report to one even more bad-ass lady!
> 
> Lastly thank you all from the bottom of my heart for sticking with this twisty, un-beta'd mess of a story. I have a beta for the next one so there should be less typos and continuity errors!!


End file.
